Former Super League star Ryan Boyle has been criticised for sharing a picture of a NRL Women's player’s breasts after a mishap as she dived for the try line.
The image, posted to Twitter and since deleted, was accompanied by the degrading caption: “This women’s @NRL isn’t too bad after all.”
Boyle, who most recently played for Doncaster in Betfred League 1, received plenty of criticism for the tweet after he posted it on Sunday morning.
The 34-year-old’s tweet led to an outcry in support of the unnamed player, with Carl Lloyd (@lloydcarl) replying: “Please delete this tweet and respect her privacy, she stepped onto the field to play, not to have people look at her body uninvited.”
Brandon Dawson (@bdawson1902) also hit out at Boyle: “Pretty sure she wouldn’t want this pic circulating. Think of what it could do for someone’s mental health to have this kind of pic be posted online.”
Lauren (lollihunter) tagged Doncaster Rugby League Club in her reply and said: “tweets that do no good for the women’s game.”
Several replies pointed out that Boyle is a father of two girls himself, but Nathalie (NatiAFC) perhaps put it best as she wrote: “I was gonna say as a father of 2 girls you should know better than to tweet s*** like this… but not even as a father… as a decent respectable human.”
Boyle then sensationally followed it up by posting a screenshot of a statement, which read: “The world is a magical place full of people waiting to be offended by something.”
After deleting the controversial tweet, Boyle posted somewhat of an apology.
“Apologies for anyone who I offended,” he wrote. “I just thought with it already being in the public domain it was ok to tweet. I wasn’t trying to disrespect anyone so apologies if it came across that way.”
Boyle joined Doncaster from Halifax in October 2017 after previous Super League stints with Castleford and Salford.
He also has five caps for Ireland.
