I've never been to a junior rugby league game. Is that why I've never heard racial abuse of children playing sport? I have been to many junior soccer, rugby union and cricket games and not once did I hear a taunt even remotely racist directed at a child on the field or, for that matter, anyone on or off the field. And so I find it hard to believe accounts in our paper this week of "constant" racial abuse of a 13-year-old Tongan boy. The reported abuse, over years, includes the words nigger, black dog and golliwog. The boy is uncommonly big, a fact that is suggested as a reason for the abuse, and he has just been suspended for swearing at a referee, which seems to have prompted the claims of racial vilification.

I'm sorry, I do find it hard to believe that Australians whose children are on the field would so abuse a child. The claim that this abuse has been happening for years means, too, that they were racially insulting a boy at age 8, 9 and 10! Sorry, but I'm having trouble accepting this.

I find it harder to believe that officials and other adults of both teams did not respond forcefully to the abuse, that they did not ask Newcastle Rugby League and/or the police to bring an end to it. Newcastle Rugby League says the allegations of constant racial vilification against the boy raised since his suspension are the first it's heard of them.

The league needs to act against anyone it can establish as abusing the boy, but more urgently it needs to investigate why officials of any number of clubs did not report the abuse. It needs also to examine the situation that has a 13-year-old boy at 183cm and 104kg playing against other 13-year-old boys of typical size, but that is, of course, a separate issue.

What would you do, as a parent or official, if you heard someone hurling the word nigger at a boy playing sport? If you were there, what did you do?