- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Ben Barba is kidding himself if he really thinks he’s “not going that bad”, as he said this week. Maybe if he was a no-name player trying to make his name, you could cut him some slack, but he’s Ben Barba.
If Barba were playing anywhere near his best, his Brisbane team would be in the top four, instead of seventh and facing a crucial game against the Warriors which could see the Broncos drop out of the top eight if they lose.
Barba is light years away from his freakish form of 2012, when he won the Dally M Medal as the NRL’s player of the year while he was at Canterbury.
It would be understandable if he never reproduced that form, so hard is it to stay at a level like that when 15 other clubs put a lot of resources into adjusting their approach to limit your impact.
But he isn’t even playing near as well as he still did for Canterbury last season, when his game was affected by off-field drama and injury.
So what is Barba’s excuse this season? He doesn’t think he needs one, judging by his quotes in the Courier Mail after the Broncos’ 35-34 loss to Penrith on Monday night.
“Over the last few weeks I reckon I’ve been pretty good,” Barba said. “I’m not going that bad. I only dropped one bomb (against Penrith) and you can’t catch them all.”
Barba has never been great under the high ball, but that attempt he was talking about against the Panthers was pathetic. He never got off the ground and just stuck out his hands, hoping the ball would find them.
Penrith hooker James Segeyaro came flying through, jumped high to take the ball as if Barba wasn’t there, and the Panthers soon ended up with a try. Moments like that can mean a hell of a lot – particularly when the difference between the two teams at the end is one point!
Four rounds back, in a game against the Warriors, Barba looked like his old self, scoring a 47-metre solo try. It’s always great to see Barba do something like that, but a check of the match statistics shows he ran for a total of 111 metres in that game – nothing to get excited about over the course of 80 minutes. And the Broncos lost, 19-10.
The point is that such efforts from Barba are far too isolated these days.
This may seem like Barba-bashing, but it’s frustrating to see a great player like him not producing anything like the form we know he can. A special performance from Barba, leading to a Brisbane win in the return match with the Warriors on Saturday, would take some heat off Broncos coach Anthony Griffin.
Not by choice, Griffin is caught up in the constant speculation over where Wayne Bennett is going to coach next season, Bennett having opted out of Newcastle.
There is apparent interest in Bennett from Brisbane, but just how strong that interest is remains unclear. It was significant this week that star Broncos player Corey Parker came out in support of Griffin, saying the playing group backed him.
The feeling I got from Parker was that there is some frustration among the Brisbane players at the suggestion that they can’t go back up the ladder without Bennett.
St George Illawarra’s interest in getting Bennett back, driven by chief executive Peter Doust, has been clear for some time, but it is reported today that Dragons board member Sean O’Connor has come out in support of interim coach Paul McGregor being given the long-term job.
O’Connor is only one of eight directors, but it’s still an interesting development. My guess is Bennett would prefer to get back to Brisbane, otherwise he would have been confirmed at St George Illawarra by now.
Is it possible that, by playing a waiting game, the great man could end up with neither club as an option?
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.