Gary Belcher has backed his former Canberra Raiders teammate Ricky Stuart.
The current Raiders coach has come under fire for his unprecedented outburst toward Penrith’s Jaeman Salmon, labelling him a “weak gutted dog” after an incident in Saturday night’s match between the two clubs.
While Belcher has thrown his support behind Stuart, he admits his actions were “regrettable” and believes his old colleague will cop his right whack.
“Has he brought the game into disrepute? Yes, I’d say so,” he said on Sportsday.
“It’s really regrettable. Ricky knows that he did the wrong thing and pretty quickly it was relayed to him.
“It’s very unfortunate. I’m going to stick by him because he’s a champion bloke, one of my teammates and I’m close to Ricky.
“But we all make mistakes. This is obviously a very big sore point for Ricky. He said as much (on Sunday) that some stuff happened between his son and Jaeman Salmon when they were about 12 and he said I thought I dealt with it, but obviously I hadn’t.
“It came to the surface in a really unfortunate situation and he’s just going to bear the brunt of it.
“One thing I do know about Ricky is he’s a man’s man and he’ll stand up and cop his punishment.”
Stuart will reportedly cop a one-game suspension and be hit with a fine of $20,000 for his actions.