Barba says he lost ‘everything’
BAD BOY LOOKS BACK
CONTROVERSIAL rugby league bad boy Ben Barba is his own worst enemy.
In a wide-ranging interview, Barba, 30, said he always seemed to stuff up when things were going well.
The former NRL and Super League fullback spoke candidly about his time in rehab, run-ins with the media and his propensity to make life hard for himself. The final straw for Barba was in 2019 when he was sacked by the Cowboys and deregistered from the NRL after an integrity unit investigation found he had been involved in a physical altercation with his partner in Townsville on Australia Day.
“I lost my head and made a mistake that cost me everything,” Barba said.
CONTROVERSIAL rugby league bad boy Ben Barba is his own worst enemy.
In a wide-ranging interview on online talk show T.I. Talks Footy on Sunday, Barba, 30, said he always seemed to stuff up when things were going well.
“If there’s one thing I can look back on, is that every time things went well for me, I would always do something to stuff it up and bring myself down. I wish I had made better decisions,” he said.
The final straw for Barba was in 2019 when he was sacked by the Cowboys and deregistered from the NRL after an integrity unit investigation found he had been involved in a physical altercation with his partner.
“I lost my head and made a mistake that cost me everything,” Barba said. “I did things that weren’t right and stuff that I’m not very proud of that cost me my career. At the end of the day it’s no one’s fault but mine,” he said.
Barba said his decision to leave the Bulldogs for the Broncos at the end of 2013 came because he wanted to stay close to his children. Barba said the ankle injury he sustained during the 2013 finals, which required surgery in the off-season, hampered his 2014 preparations and made it difficult to make the kind of early impact that was expected of him at the Broncos.
At the end of 2014, Barba met with then-broncos boss Wayne Bennett and learned there was no place for him in the starting side.
His return to Sydney with Cronulla in 2015 offered little respite from the “head noise” that kept telling him he might not be good enough to play NRL football anymore.
“We weren’t going too well and I got shifted back to that bench role again,” Barba said.
He said a chat with good mate Daly Cherry-evans, coupled with a return home to Mackay to play in an indigenous carnival in the 2015 off-season, was the catalyst for his form revival at the Sharks, which culminated in a 2016 premiership.
“Being around family, being around that brotherhood … I’ve always gone back to them and found my love of the game again,” Barba said.
Barba returned to Cronulla in 2016 fighting for his favoured No. 1 jersey with a young Valentine Holmes. He said that was the push he needed to get himself back into shape.
“I just happened to be part of that wonderful squad at Cronulla that year.”
The high of the 2016 premiership was soon scuppered by the low of a second positive test for a banned substance. With it came a 12-week ban and his position at Cronulla was terminated.
“I got caught up in the midst of winning a premiership. It’s not something I’m very proud of,” Barba said. Barba returned to the peak of his playing powers at St Helens.
Barba linked with the Cowboys ahead of the 2019 NRL season and after impressing in pre-season appeared destined for good things. Instead he was sacked by the Cowboys and deregistered from the NRL after the altercation with his partner.
“I lost my head and made a mistake that cost me everything,” Barba said.
Barba was just weeks away from a potential return to playing in Mackay this year but was charged over allegedly punching his brother-in-law Adrian Currie during an incident in Mackay on February 22.
>>Read the full interview at townsville bulletin.com.au