Tyrone Peachey, a former teammate of Spencer Leniu, admitted that he was frustrated and dismayed with the suspended Rooster after it came to light that he racially slurred Ezra Mam.
A proud veteran of the Indigenous All Stars team, Peachey - who spent time with Leniu at the Penrith Panthers - expressed that he was sad to hear the Rooster recruit call Mam a 'monkey' but described the forward as a "gentleman" who "loses his head on the footy field."
Speaking about racism on the football field, the 32-year-old revealed that it is not as common as it used to be when he first began his rugby league career.
"Probably when I first started (it was a problem)," Peachey told Wide World of Sports.
"A bit disappointing, how it is, but I've got thick skin so it's water off a duck's back for me.
"Now it's brought to everyone's attention and hopefully it doesn't get said anymore because I've got kids and hopefully it doesn't happen to them.
"We shouldn't have to deal with that. For Spencer, kids idolise him and for him to say that - they're going to think that that's normal and we don't want that.
"So I'm glad that it has been called out and everyone's talking about it."
Peachey explained that although Leniu was found guilty and handed an eight-week suspension, "he was nothing but a gentleman" to him during their time together at Penrith last year.
This isn't the first time Leniu has lost his cool on the football field having scuffled and nearly gotten into a fight with new teammate Jared Waerea-Hargreaves when they faced each other last season.
"He was nothing but a gentleman to me," Peachey added.
"So it was disappointing that it has come out that he said that and I feel sorry for Ezra.
"Everyone has their opinion and hopefully we can just move past it and get back to footy because it's been a pretty shit week... he's a good kid, he just loses his head on the footy field as we've seen last year with (Jared) Waerea-Hargreaves.
"He's passionate about football and I believe he wanted to fly up to Brisbane and meet Ezra man to man and shake his hand and say sorry. So I think that was a good thing for him to do and say.
"Hopefully Ezra forgives him and we can just move forward."
With the incident being in the headlines over the past two weeks, many former players and critics have criticised how the racism saga was played out.
Suspended on Monday evening, Spencer Leniu dominated the headlines for over a week.
However, one former player believes that the slur being in the headlines for an extended period of time is actually a good thing as it has helped educate individuals on the hurt of racism.
"Johno (Thurston) is a proud Indigenous man and works in a lot of Indigenous programs, so he understands the history and the hurt when it comes to racism," Darren Lockyer told QLDER.
"When you see him emotional talking about it, you know it's from the heart.
"I think if Spencer hadn't been remorseful, and not owned it, (not) apologised, then I think it would have been 12 weeks. A statement, I think, has been made by the game.
"The positive about this is we have been talking about it since Las Vegas, and it becomes an educational piece for society because it helps people realise what is right and what's wrong, what's accepted and not accepted.
"So it's all a learning curve, we are all working towards trying to stamp it out.
"We deal with it appropriately and I think this has been done in this case. We hope, as a society, that we learn from it and we prevent those mistakes from happening again."
