Nic Naitanui has revealed he still cops racial abuse on social media on a near weekly basis and has confronted perpetrators in person when given the chance in Perth.

West Coast’s star ruckman detailed the frequency of attack during the AFL season on the Ordineroli Speaking podcast and his own efforts to confront racism head on when given the opportunity in Perth.

“Every game,” Naitanui said when questioned on the frequency of abuse. “We play 20 times a year, I’d get it 20 times year, easily.”

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“Sometimes you think you get to the point where you think you’re bigger than that but you’re not. Especially during the season, especially if you push someone over or you do something to someone’s team that they support, there’s always someone with an anonymous account.

“Sometimes not even anonymous, sometimes they’re not scared at all and they’ll write some pretty racist stuff.

“Everyone’s got a lot more balls on social media than they would in real life.

“Sometimes I’d fight back, I used to write back to them or have a go at them, especially if they live in Perth - I’d find a way to catch up with them.

“Especially if you see them in a club or something and you know who they are and you know what they’ve done, I’ll let them know.

“You wouldn’t say it to their face, my biggest thing is some of these guys, I don’t care if you’re a 20 year old man or a 60-year-old man, if you saw a big black guy in public you’re not going to say the sort of stuff you’ve said.”

The West Coast star returned to form in 2020 claiming the club’s best-and-fairest and an All-Australian selection after his second ACL reconstruction two years prior.

Being one of the faces of the AFL for over a decade has built a resilience in the 30-year-old but Naitanui still felt for younger teammates that didn’t have the experience to process regular racist interactions.

“I don’t mind if you bag my football but if you start bringing race or family into it, what hurts me more is when they do it to my teammates - especially younger teammates,” he said.

“I got younger teammates like Liam Ryan who cop it all the time, and he went through a phase where he was copping it every single week.

“If they haven’t been given the tools or resilience to look past it or be a bigger person and not let it effect them, that would be okay, but when I see how much it hurts them and hurts their family.

“I don’t know sometimes you just want to catch some of these guys one on one and deal with them because you would never do it (in person).”

Naitanui has managed 188 games in Eagles colours since being taken second in the 2008 AFL draft and amassed around 227,000 followers between Instagram and Twitter alone.

He opened up about being racially targeted by players and parents as a junior and explained why his approach to dealing with such interactions had changed with age.

“I would get angry,” he said, “it wasn’t the best way but I gave them some back.

“I never gave racism back to racism though, obviously they have some sort of ignorance so I never bit back with racism but I just sort of stood up for myself.

“When I was younger, 19 or 20, I used to screenshot a lot of stuff and I see a lot of guys now reposting and sharing it. That used to be me but now I’m like, I hate giving them a voice.

“If you’re irrelevant, no one knows who you are why should I give you a voice on my platform.”