Ben Barba
Benjamin Barba is an Australian former professional dual code rugby league and rugby union footballer who last played for St Helens in the Super League. He primarily played as a or.
Barba won the Dally M Medal award for Player of the Year in 2012 while he was at the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs.
Barba also played for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, the Brisbane Broncos in 2014 and the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks where he was part of Cronulla's maiden NRL premiership win in the 2016 NRL Grand Final. In 2018, he won the Man of Steel Award for Super League Player of the Year while playing for St Helens. Barba is only the second man to win both the Dally M Medal and the Man of Steel award, after Gavin Miller.
Barba also had a brief stint in rugby union with RC Toulonnais.
Early years
Barba was born in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. He is of Aboriginal, Afghan, and Torres Strait Islander descent.At a young age, Barba and his family moved from Darwin in the Northern Territory to Mackay in Queensland. During his time in Queensland he played all of his junior rugby league for the North Devils, Mackay and attended Mackay State High School and St Patrick's College, Mackay. He also played Australian Rules at both primary and secondary school competition level in Mackay as a goal kicking forward, though with limited opportunities to participate in the sport, he followed Hawks in the Australian Football League.
Rugby league career
Barba signed with the Bulldogs in 2007 at the age of 18 and joined the club in the middle of the 2007 season. In his first season at Belmore, Barba played in the Jersey Flegg competition, where he scored 130 points in 11 games. Barba played 26 games, scored 38 tries, kicked 93 goals and two fields goals for 340 points in his U20s career from 2008 to 2009.2008
In his second season with the Canterbury side, on 9 January 2008, Barba signed a contract extension keeping him at the club till the end of the 2010 season. Barba played most of the season in the Toyota Cup Under 20s competition, scoring 26 tries in 27 games. Canterbury coach Steve Folkes stated that he was still too young and it would be a couple of years till he would become a first grader. As the season went on, Canterbury kept on losing games and were possibly going to win the wooden spoon resulting in the fans urging that Barba be put into first grade.Barba made his NRL debut for Canterbury in Round 20, against the St. George Illawarra Dragons in the same week that Sonny Bill Williams quit the club. They were heavily beaten by St. George Illawarra 30-0 at ANZ Stadium. At the time he was called up to first-grade, Barba was working at a car wash.
Barba played three more games, but all were losses. A 36-12 loss in Round 22 to the other desperate team close to winning the wooden spoon, the North Queensland Cowboys, at Suncorp Stadium, saw Barba scoring his first ever first grade try. In the 2008 NRL season, Barba played four games and scored a try and was named in the 2008 Toyota Cup Team of the Year.
2009
Barba started the season in first grade under new coach Kevin Moore. He played off the interchange bench in Round 1 against the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles On 28 March, the night after Canterbury's Round 3 loss against the Gold Coast Titans where he had his first start at five-eighth, Barba got into a drunken fight with Canterbury teammates Jamal Idris and Lee Te Maari at the Wentworthville pub carpark. Idris punched Barba after he shoved Te Maari against a wall. After the incident Barba was dropped into NSW Cup and played for the Bankstown City Bulls until Round 18 against the New Zealand Warriors at Mt Smart Stadium. The match was a memorable one for Barba and for the club. Canterbury were down 14-12 with a couple of minutes to go, then the Bulldogs made a break and Barba received a pass from Ben Roberts before stepping and diving over for the winning try in Canterbury's 18-14 win. Barba eventually played the rest of the season in reserve grade. He played in Canterbury's NSW Cup Grand Final Premiership 32-0 win over the Balmain Ryde Eastwood Tigers where he scored a hat trick of tries. Barba finished the season with one try from 4 games.2010
Barba started the season as a regular first grade player. In Round 3 against the Sydney Roosters, Barba came off the interchange bench and scored a hat trick of tries in the Canterbury club's 60-14 massacre win at ANZ Stadium, earning "The X-Factor" tag after his exciting performance in the match. In Round 5, Barba scored a sensational try when halftime was approaching in the Bulldogs heartbreaking try on full-time 30-24 loss to the New Zealand Warriors. In Round 11, Barba started for the first time in the season at in Canterbury's 31-16 loss against the Penrith Panthers. Barba finished Canterbury's low performing season with him playing in 21 matches and scoring 15 tries, being Canterbury's standout player.2011
At the beginning of the season, on 12 February, Barba made his representative debut for the Indigenous All Stars in the 2011 All Stars Match. He scored his first ever representative try in the match where they lost to the NRL All Stars 28-12 at Cbus Super Stadium. With the departure of former Canterbury and NSW Country fullback Luke Patten to English club the Salford City Reds, Barba became Canterbury's new full-time. In Round 6, Barba scored a hat-trick of tries in Canterbury's 34-14 win over the Parramatta Eels at ANZ Stadium. The second try came with 49 seconds of the first half remaining, from a move starting in his team's own half and finishing with Barba taking a pass from Jamal Idris, jumping up and twisting the ball round to touch down just inside the in-goal area, as two Parramatta defenders tried to force him out into touch. His shoulder touching the corner post in the process, with the corner post no longer being part of the touch in-goal area.It was announced on 20 July that Barba had signed a contract extension at the Canterbury club until the end of the 2015 season. In Round 25, Barba scored two tries in the 32-22 win against the Newcastle Knights in a thrilling second half comeback after they were trailing 22-6 at halftime. Barba scored a try when he chased down a Jonathan Wright cross over kick which was going to go over the dead ball line before Baraba reached out his arms and placed the ball down millimetres away from the deal ball line. In Round 26, with Canterbury just missing out of a top eight spot, Barba scored four tries in the 36-22 win against the Canberra Raiders at ANZ Stadium in retiring Canterbury captain and second rower Andrew Ryan last ever game. Barba finished the year with him playing in 24 matches and scoring 23 tries, being the season's equal top try scorer with South Sydney Rabbitohs winger Nathan Merritt. Barba played on the interchange bench in the Prime Minister's XIII squad to play against Papua New Guinea at the end of the year.