Sports fans and spectators know very well of consistent, long-term successful sportspeople, but what about the short-term sports stars?

Due to various reasons, some successful sportspeople are around on a short-term level, coming in, performing well, and then leaving or disappearing a short-term later with only a handful of some fruitful performances here-and-there.

This has been unlike luckier and successful long-term League players like Queensland and Australian players Jonathon Thurston, and former fab-four Melbourne Storm players Greg Inglis, Cameron Smith Cooper Cronk, and Billy Slater, who have all consistently won the heights of success at all levels of League - NRL club, State, and Australian Kangaroos.

Rugby League in Australia under the National Rugby League (NRL) has some specific examples of such brief sportspeople success with Ben Barba, and Todd Carney.

Ben Barba, an Indigenous, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs full-back, and sometime five-eighth, had a wonderful year with the team in 2012, winning the Dally M medal for Player of the Year for the five years he was with the team. After this he had mainly short stints here-and-there with other league teams, again with some success. Barba won the 2016 NRL Premiership Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, and was one of the Players of the Year under the English Super League in 2018, playing for St. Helen's.

After this success, Barba left the Bulldogs, and somehow did not perform as well. He later for the Indigenous All-Stars, Brisbane Broncos, originally living in Queensland, then Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, St. Helen's in the English Super League (ESL), and now North Queensland Cowboys in 2019. He got caught into substance abuse and gambling, and was caught for assaulting his partner.

Todd Carney was half-back, five-eighth, or fullback for the Canberra Raiders for five years from 2004-2009, a year with the Sydney Roosters, two-years with the Sharks, and then had short appearances for Catalans, Salford, and Hull under the ESL, like Barba and the ESL.

In his first year for the Canberra Raiders in 2004, Carney got 'Rookie of the Year'. In 2010, Carney achieved so much under his new team of the Sharks. Carney achieved the NRL Dally M Player of the Year, and Five-Eighth of the Year in 2010, and even more the International Player of the Year in 2010 under the Rugby League International Federation. After this, there was fewer successes for Carney, much like Barba. Similar to Barba, Carney was caught for off-field misbehaviour, including drinking alcohol and dirty actions.

A number of NRL players have done this Barba and Carney option of going to the ESL in the northern hemisphere to have a break from the NRL, earn more money, and play at a lower level of skill at the ESL.

Barba, Carney, and the like of similar short-term successful sportspeople would have been affected by issues such as:
- Money, and contract money;
- Fame and being a star and celebrity;
- Off-field behaviour;
- Vices and addictions, i.e. substance abuse, gambling, sex, and wrong behaviour;
- Competition in top-level sports to perform well long-term consistently;
- Injuries and sickness;
- Problems with family, friends, and colleagues.

Bibliography
- Wikipedia:
'Ben Barba'
'Todd Carney'