Peter Sterling has slammed the penalties handed out to Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr and Nathan Cleary over their flouting of social distancing measures.
Mitchell and Addo-Carr were fined and handed suspended one-match bans after the Melbourne Storm winger posted photos of them breaking strict social distancing procedures last weekend.
Cleary was also caught out on social media in two seperate posts, including a TikTok video taken on Anzac Day.
The misbehaviour came as the game's bosses are working towards a May 28 return to footy.
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Sterlo is the latest to speak out against the punishments handed down to the trio by the NRL, saying they should have been suspended for longer.
"I don't think it was anywhere near enough," he said on The Sunday Footy Show on Channel Nine.
"I think players are hit harder by missing games.
"This is a different situation that we're facing here. The considerations that they took into account, for me, I don't quite understand.
"First one was that the players in this instance were given the benefit of the doubt. What doubt? What doubt are they talking about?
"The second one was because they weren't under their club cover. Players, if they don't know now that when you sign a contract that you are a club representative and an NRL representative 24-7, 12 months of the year."
Retired Sharks captain Paul Gallen argued the punishments were severe enough, but Sterling wasn't done, hitting out at the "stupidity" of the players caught out.
"This stupidity and entitlement is at a time like no other," he said.
"There's so much more at stake now than we've had over player misbehaviour.
"That, to me, adds to the magnitude of the penalties and the offence because it is putting people's lives at risk.
"The people who are on the property up there, we don't know who they had been around. If you infect three other people, that infects more and more.
"There's so much more at risk in this present day. We can't be talking about misbehaviour in the past, because we've never been in this situation before."
