By Adam Mccleery and Charlie Moore For Daily Mail Australia
Published: 13:59 GMT, 14 February 2019 | Updated: 21:35 GMT, 14 February 2019
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Only weeks ago Ben Barba was considered one of rugby league's most exciting stars, and was in training for the upcoming season at the North Queensland Cowboys with a $500,000-a-year contract.
But on Monday, he started work as a truck driver, earning $27 an hour.
The former North Queensland Cowboys and Cronulla Sharks player was banned from the game after he was filmed allegedly hitting his girlfriend, Ainslie Curry, at Townsville's Ville Resort Casino on Australia Day.
After the altercation was made public, NRL CEO Todd Greenberg said it was time for Barba, the 2012 Dally M Payer of the Year, to find a new job.
Once considered one of rugby league's rising stars, Ben Barba traded his lucrative $500,000 a year contract for life as a truck driver on Monday (pictured with his girlfriend)
Barba was set to play for the North Queensland Cowboys in 2019 on a lucrative deal before the alleged incident on Australia Day
'It was a physical altercation and that's all I needed to see and all I needed to be told in order to make the decision we've made,' he said.
'I can't see a time at anytime in the future that he'll be welcomed back.
'In the jurisdiction that I uphold there's no place for him. It's time for Ben Barba to find a new vocation.'
