A leading sports psychologist says the NRL must do more to help players prepare for social media criticism or risk a repeat of Ben Hunt's high profile case.
Jeff Bond has applauded Hunt for seeking professional help ahead of the NRL finals after the St George Illawarra No.7 consulted a psychologist to cope with vile trolls.
But Bond - who has worked with NRL and AFL clubs - believed the league should never have let Hunt get to that stage.
Bond urged the NRL to educate players on strategies to build their social media resilience to prevent Hunt's sorry plight from happening again.
"One of the best approaches to social media impact is to have players given some preventative work other than wait until someone gets to this stage and putting the white flag up," Bond told AAP.
"It's a matter of building good core self esteem and along with that comes resilience to those kind of things, that's what I would recommend.
"I think at club and junior level, coaches and sporting administrators and also parents could do their bit there too because it (social media) is everywhere.
"In the long run prevention has got to be better than the cure."
In his first year of a $6 million deal, Hunt had been the scapegoat of the Dragons' late season fade and copped abuse that became so bad his wife publicly hit out at the "despicable bullying".
Hunt first asked the haters to back off before seeking out a psychologist.
He bounced back with a vengeance to lead the Dragons to a shock 48-18 elimination final win over his former club Brisbane last weekend.
Off-field pressures again came to the forefront on Tuesday when Cronulla's Jeff Dugan broke down in tears when he spoke of dealing with five years of negative media before Friday night's semi-final against Penrith.
While Bond agreed the best prevention was quitting social media, he urged the NRL to act quickly to safeguard players from trolls.
"Typically an athlete who is on the rise and out to prove themselves is more likely to be sensitive to that kind of impact and their wellbeing can be disrupted by it," he said.
"(But) I think you would have to encourage any athlete who has been distracted or disturbed by social media posts usually by people who don't know any better to seek professional help.
"Hunt has done the right thing."
