Rugby, Australian Football: Sean Long 'I've been stupid'

St Helens star Sean Long has admitted he was foolish to place a bet on his side to lose.

Long and team-mate Martin Gleeson were this week banned for three and four months respectively after betting on Saints to lose at Bradford on Easter Monday.

The pair were also ordered to pay almost £10,000 in fines and costs and with Saints deciding not to pay them during their suspensions, the whole affair could cost them up to £50,000 each.

Long, who collected £909 from the bet, told the News of the World: "I don't want sympathy. I've done wrong. I have been thick, stupid, gullible, you name it - a right plonker."

Saints were thrashed 54-8 after 11 regulars were surprisingly left out of the side.

Long added: "We'd had a gruelling game on Good Friday with Wigan. The following day the treatment room was like a war zone, full of players.

"We were at Bradford on the Monday and I thought to myself, 'Some of these guys won't be playing'.

"I wasn't playing, I knew my neighbour Paul Sculthorpe was out and I just thought 'I'll have a bet'.

"I spoke to Martin on the phone, chatted with Scully when we walked the dogs but these were the only people I spoke to. There can be no suggestion of collusion with other team-mates.

"If I could turn back the clock I would straight away."

Meanwhile former Great Britain captain Garry Schofield has criticised the Rugby Football League for not issuing a heavier punishment.

Schofield told the Daily Star Sunday: "They have settled for the halfway house solution.

"Can anyone really believe that if these two had not been high profile players they would have been treated in the same way?

"In my view a Joe Nobody prop from somewhere like York or Hunslet would have been slapped down with anything up to a life ban, told to go away and forget rugby league altogether."