Shane Flanagan says Cronulla would welcome back 2016 premiership-winning fullback Ben Barba with open arms, potentially as a replacement for the departing Ricky Leutele.
Reports suggest Barba is keen on a return to the NRL despite his sparkling form for St Helens in the English Super League.
Leutele will leave the Sharks at the end of the season after agreeing to join the Toronto Wolfpack. With Cronulla also losing exciting young centre Jesse Ramien to Newcastle next season, Flanagan could potentially shift Josh Dugan and Valentine Holmes to centre and wing respectively to accommodate the 28-year-old Barba.
“Benny is a premiership-winning player for this club and if he wants to come back to Australia, he’s got a young family, we’ll definitely look at it,” Flanagan said.
“We’ve lost Ricky Leutele, he’s off to Toronto Wolfpack next year and Jesse [Ramien] is off to Newcastle. So it might be time that Duges is quite happy to play in the centres, he’s playing at fullback at the moment. We’ll weigh all those things up in due time. But we’ve just got to concentrate on the present at the moment.”
Barba left Cronulla at the end of 2016 after testing positive for cocaine during the club’s grand final celebrations. He switched codes to play rugby union for Toulon before joining St Helens.
Barba had arrived in the shire in 2015 after a deflating spell with Brisbane. But the 2012 Dally M Medalist with Canterbury returned to playing his best football with the Sharks and is still popular among the playing group and the club’s supporters.
“[We’ve got] no issues. He made a bad decision,” Flanagan said after Cronulla downed Canterbury 22-16 on Sunday.
“He’s a premiership-winning player here and obviously it’s our only premiership. And we treat, or I do, all those players who were here at the club in 2016 whether they played in that grand final or not and a lot of players before that contributed to this club. We love Benny.”
The Sharks produced another gritty performance to hold off the Bulldogs at Shark Park to secure their fifth win in a row and climb to fifth on the NRL table.
“We were probably our own worst enemy on a few of occasions but they’re a tough footy side. They’re going through a tough patch at the moment but they’ve got some good players in their team and made us work for it,” Flanagan said.
“[It’s a fair effort] especially on the back of who has been out the last six weeks. Our whole back row, our most experienced players. Gal, Luke Lewis, Wade Graham, Duges, that’s a fair effort and they’re starting to come back at the moment.
“But it gives me real confidence where we’re at as a club. The younger players are getting the opportunity. Blokes like Gal know these younger blokes are coming to get them and they’ve got to play good as well.”