RUGBY league great Petero Civoniceva says ill discipline should not be part of any rugby league player’s game.

The former Australia, and Fiji Bati captain, known to be one of the ‘gentleman’ of the code made the comments following reports of disciplinary issues, especially on the field for local players.

“To play in our game, you take out your aggression through the way you run and the way you tackle,” Civoniceva said.

He said in order for someone to become a really good player in the code, they had to train hard and more importantly they needed to be humble and had discipline.

“It doesn’t cost you individually to have discipline, but it cost the team dearly when you do not have discipline. It sets a bad example to younger players and I just want to really stress that to our boys playing in the competitions from our junior grades right to our senior grades.”

He said players should always remember that they could be aggressive in the way they play, but they must be aggressive within the rules.

He said players should expect that at times there would be some very demeaning and negative comments thrown in from the crowd during their games, but they should not be discouraged by them.

“One thing I have learned is to turn those negative criticism into a positive one by using that to motivate me. I think you can use your criticism to your advantage, use it to inspire you, to work harder and you can get great results at the back of that,” he said.