League: Former NRL star Luke Lewis slams current crop of 'grubs'

Luke Lewis played more than 300 NRL games before retiring at the end of 2018. Photo / Getty Images

The NRL has endured a nightmare off-season with several incidents landing players in trouble with the law.

And in an emotionally charged message, former player Luke Lewis delivered powerful words to the playing group surrounding off-field behaviour.

Lewis spoke out against comments made by St George-Illawarra Dragons prop James Graham on NRL 360, after he claimed league attracted a certain 'personality type' due to the aggressive nature of the game.

Lewis wasn't happy with those comments from Graham and didn't bite his tongue when speaking on the subject.

"You've either got morals, or you don't," Lewis said.

"My morals are: you do not belt a woman. That's just how it is.

"I'm a proud ambassador of White Ribbon and I just don't respect any man that goes out and belts a woman. It's just not right.

"If we're going to sit there and talk about our game changing and our culture changing, if you're going to come into the game and get paid ridiculously well and you can't change your morals because 'we've got to change the culture' — you've got to change the culture mentally. You're the one who's got to turn up and say 'I don't want to belt women, I want to be a different person, I want to be a role model' and if you don't want to do it, then don't play our game.

"You just treat women with respect and it's done, you don't have any dramas."

The outburst from Lewis hit close to home as he explained just why he felt so strongly about the topic.

"Because I've seen my mum (experience) a lot of domestic violence at home.

"I've seen my mum get dragged down the hallway by her hair and get bashed. It's not a good feeling.

"It goes through to the kids and the kids see it all the time, but the only one who's going to change is the bloke who's experienced it themselves.

"So if I experienced it as a kid and I don't want to see it and I don't want to see my daughter go through it, I'm the one who's got to make the change. No one else is going to make me change unless I make the decision to do it.

"How's it all come out about 'this is our background, this is that'.

"You either believe in it and you buy into it, or you're just a grub. That's my personal opinion."