Announcements

FORMER Saints star Ben Barba has begun a job as a truck driver, according to Australian media reports.

The Australian was banned from the game after CCTV footage was viewed of him allegedly assaulting his partner in a casino in Townsville.

The 29-year-old has started driving trucks in Mackay, Queensland for about $27 an hour on Monday, Daily Mail Australia has reported.

The NRL took the decision to ban the fullback, which was also upheld by Super League, after the game's integrity unit viewed CCTV footage of the alleged assault.

The 29-year-old reigning Man of Steel, who was the leading try-scorer in Super League in 2018, was sacked by his new club North Queensland Cowboys without playing a game following the alleged incident outside a Townsville casino.

NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg said the integrity unit probe found "there was a physical altercation between the player and his partner".

He said: "His registration with the game is no longer and I can't see a time, at any time in the future, that he'll be welcomed back."

Greenberg, who revealed he had not had any contact with Barba, said he would not call for a worldwide sanction.

"What I am going to say is that in the jurisdiction that I uphold, there's no place for him. It's probably time for Ben to find a new vocation."

In 2017, the RFL rejected an appeal by St Helens against a 12-match ban imposed by the NRL on Barba for cocaine use in the aftermath of Cronulla's 2016 NRL Grand Final triumph.

Sacked by Cronulla, Barba had a brief spell in rugby union with French club Toulon before being snapped up by Saints in May 2017 in the face of competition from Warrington.

He was restricted to playing the last five matches of the season for Saints, but made up for lost time in 2018 when he was named in the Super League Dream Team and became the first player to win both the Dally M Medal and Man of Steel.

Barba was then released from the final year of his contract with Saints after he was handed a chance to resurrect his NRL career with the Cowboys.