Rugby league funny man Bryan Fletcher believes NRL players take themselves too seriously and wishes there were more characters like Sam Burgess in the game.
Fletcher considers the outspoken South Sydney captain a breath of fresh air and says Burgess had every right comparing the NRL judiciary to “a kangaroo court” if that’s what he felt.
“You can’t say anything anymore,” Fletcher said ahead of the Rabbitohs’ preliminary final with Canberra on Friday night.
“The media – and I suppose I’m in the media now – we always talk about having no characters and someone comes out and we’re into him.
“But he’s got a point. The judiciary committee and the match review committee obviously don’t really talk to each other because someone gets charged and they get off, or vice versa, and we’ve just got to try to fix that.”
Fletcher, a former Rabbitohs captain himself after winning a premiership with the Sydney Roosters in 2002, says it’s a shame players can’t enjoy themselves off the field like they used to.
“Life’s gotten too serious. Everyone wants to be outraged about something,” he said.
“It’s social media. Social media has completely stuffed everything.
“No one really wants to be themselves … and Sam, because’s he’s so passionate, I love watching him play.
“Just the way he speaks his mind and I think he was well within his rights to say it.”
Fletcher says “no way” do modern-day players enjoy being stars like the old days.
“When I get around the young blokes and tell them what we used to do, they’d go: ‘Are you serioius?’,” he said.
“You used to go out with your Roosters shirt on. That was the first thing you’d do.
“I remember Freddie (Brad Fittler) once saying, I wish we could have our names on the back of our shirts, like in a nightclub.”