Excellent roles played in sport (4,5)

I believe the answer is:

good loser

'sport' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'excellent roles played in' is the wordplay.
'excellent' becomes 'good' ().
'played' is an anagram indicator (letters playing around).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'roles' with letters rearranged gives 'loser'.
'good' placed within 'loser' is 'GOOD LOSER'.

I've seen this clue in The Daily Express.

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