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And so Benny Barba is off to Toulon, wherever that is.
There’s conjecture given our Benny’s much-publicised predilection to getting on the ink and hoovering up the half-cut product of Colombian hill people, and all that, whether the South of France is quite the best place for him to be. He will be ‘recovering’ from testing positive to cocaine a couple days after the Sharks won the comp.
Well – I’m here to say that it is.
Firstly, $2.5 million goes a long way to benefitting Ben Barba and his little family, who’ve been through the ringer over the years as he lived out his risk-taking, warrior-phase early 20s like Nemo in a fishbowl under 60 Minutes‘ stage lights.
All that cash – $2.5 million! – goes a long way. How about that action for a fullback beyond his best, a man who’ll be 28 in June, who isn’t getting faster.
He had maybe two seasons more of salad in the National Rugby League, and plenty of those they’d be saying Valentine Holmes should be the Sharks’ No.1.
It’s also pretty big money for a bloke who has what some would call a ‘drug problem’. Others would call it grubby but mostly harmless, something that makes a man feel funny and cool but like an emotional credit card which gives but takes away… what?
Went off on a little tangent thee but think you get the idea. Drugs are bad, mmmkay? But y’know, they’re no worse than drinking a massive amount of piss which is something in Australia that’s not only accepted but confers even a certain status.
They would not understand this in the temples and mosques of southern Thailand.
And so the narrative will go that Crazy French Rah-Rahs are paying huge overs for Our Benny, and it’s another Lotto win for a league man, and yet another plug for rugby league whose athletes are so highly coveted by other sports.
And perhaps he’ll even go with the blessing of rugby league. But the hell with that. Ben Barba’s going to France because it’s the best thing for Ben Barba.
And it seems to be best for old mate in Toulon – who appears to have more money than God – who’s purchased another funky man to make his turnstiles sing.
And good luck to him, and all who sail in him.
Secondly, who’s to say Barba isn’t better off in France? Rugby league is all he’s known in the last decade, along with escaping into the who-gives-a-toss “freedom” of massive binges, as hundreds of thousands of young Aussies do every weekend.
We’re a nation of coke-heads, among the world’s largest consumers. And booze is in our blood – literally and metaphorically.
And as for those who are saying Barba would be best served back in the fold of his footy club, in the comforting bosom of the greatest game of all – rugby league – a sport which only has the best interest of Ben Barba at heart?
Well, I would suggest they think again. Because rugby league, and the environment therein, has been the one constant of Barba’s nearly eight years as a legal adult allowed to make his own choices. And he’s made some pretty dumb ones. And, well, rugby league.
Sure he won the Dally M and a heap of fame, and probably quite a bit of money, too. But every time he’s been on the piss or snorting something silly, he’s been a rugby league player.
The sport’s done its best. But Barba was still dallying with the devil’s dandruff in October.
If rugby league does want what’s best for Ben Barba it could perhaps admit that the best for Ben Barba is, perhaps, not being in rugby league. Ever again. It seems clear that the man needs a change, and you can only hang out in Bangkok detox joints for so long.
And hence: France!
Look, I know very little about France and the culture and all that. I once spent a week in Paris and went to the Louvre and got on the piss, and found myself walking the streets until I lobbed in a bar full of women and thought, you beauty, until a woman in a flannelette shirt who was a dead ringer for KD Lang gave me the universal signal that I should insert my own fist in myself, and said something in French that sounded quite rude.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
So I don’t really know or understand France, and what makes these people tick. But Peter Fitzsimons does and he says that getting blotto pissed and snorting up a storm just isn’t sort of done over there.
Yes, there’s drugs and people have a drink, of course, that’s everywhere. But people who lose their minds on the piss, even blokes in their 20s, they aren’t looked up to as they are in Australia as ‘legends’.
They’re seen as dickheads and boors. And bores. And even Boers.
Maybe not Boers. But it’s just not really done, apparently, getting maggot blind. They enjoy red wine and eat huge meals for lunch, and sleep in the afternoon.
Apparently. I’ve got a mate played golf in France. He said you stop after nine holes, have a shower, put on a suit, and have a massive lunch with a couple bottles of wine. Then you have another shower, put your golf gear back on, and out you go. Can’t see it catching on in the back bar at Long Reef GC, but when in Rome, as they say.
And when in France, too.
And what a cool place to be. What an adventure. How cool would it be, immersing yourself in Europe for a few years, flying home at Christmas to drink stubbies on Cronulla Beach as a civilian, as someone the media won’t chase, who’ll let you do what you like, because you’re ‘nobody’.
And there’s another tick for playing rugby union in Toulon over rugby league in Cronulla.
Anonymity. Barba will go from being ‘someone’ in Sydney – a beautiful fish called Nemo living in a fishbowl and blinded by spotlights – to a rugby player living in the south of France. And that’s it. Just a man doing his best.
Good luck to him.
($2.5 mill!)