Brisbane Broncos player James Roberts was described as "selfless" by his team for leaving his pregnant wife after her waters had broken to play against the South Sydney Rabbitohs last Friday night.

In a Broncos TV piece on Thursday, the 23-year-old laughed as he described how wife Anna Jovanovic "begged" him to stay, but the pleading fell on deaf ears for the NRL star, who said he did not want to let his team down.

"I thought it was close, the water broke the day before [the game] but it dragged on a bit," the Kempsey-born sportsman said. "She was begging me to stay and not go, but I just wanted to come up and do a job for the boys."

Roberts, one of the fastest players in the NRL, said coach Wayne Bennett also wanted him to start, and so avoided phonecalls from Jovanovic.