Sacked NRL star Barba completes football code-switch

Premiership-winning fullback Ben Barba has reportedly made a surprise switch to football following his lengthy exile from the National Rugby League.

Ben Barba in action for the Mackay Rangers Source: Twitter

Barba has been seen playing for Mackay Premier League outfit Mackay Rangers, according to The Daily Mercury, with the 29-year-old already involved in two of the club's first-grade games.

A Dally M winner with the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in 2012, Barba was sacked by the North Queensland Cowboys this past pre-season for an incident involving his partner at a Townsville Casino on Australia Day.

With the NRL definitively finished with the "X-Factor", Rangers coach Andrew Susani has since reaped the rewards and is thrilled with his newest number nine.

"From our point of view we are not interested in the past, we are interested in now," Susani told The Daily Mercury.

"Ben came to us and was really open about it all. He just wanted to be one of the players.

"He’s an athlete and he loves competition and the game."