“Latrell is sick of it. And why wouldn’t he be? He should be able to come here as a star of our game and not be racially abused.

“Who cares what colour he is. It’s not on. I don’t understand how it happens in this day and age.

“I can’t get my head around [the fact] a young kid thinks that’s the language to be using. I don’t care what jersey he is wearing - get them out of our game.

“Security and the club have done a great job identifying who it is. Now it is with the police.

“[But] we’ll go all the way, we’ll go as far as we can with it. As a club, we’ll stand right behind Latrell. As far as I’m concerned, we’ll go as far as we can take it.”

Mitchell returned in the second half as Souths clawed back from 16-0 down with tries to Alex Johnston and Isaiah Tass setting up a thrilling final couple of minutes.

Mitchell was interviewed after the game, but only on the condition he was not asked about the half-time scenes.

He generated plenty of headlines at the start of the week when he suggested there were “cracks in the windscreen” at Penrith following their round-one loss against Brisbane, which came on the back of the shock World Club Challenge defeat to St Helens.

Nobody inspires Indigenous kids more than Mitchell, who has also led the way when it comes to calling out racism and injustice.

In 2018, Souths great Greg Inglis was also subjected to racial abuse from a fan at Penrith.

Demetriou is close with Mitchell, but stopped short of saying the constant abuse would force him out of the game early.

“I just get worried about Latrell, or any Indigenous player in our organisation ... where as a game do we say, ‘no, it’s not happening’,” Demetriou said.

“There have to be hard and fast rules where if anyone comes close to being racial, they are completely ruled out of our game. If it’s a young kid, rule their parents out as well.

Loading

“If it was my child, I’d be absolutely ashamed, embarrassed that my child has even thought to speak like that.”

NRL CEO Andrew Abdo promised a full investigation and said: “Any form of racism or vilification will not be tolerated in our sport.

“We will not accept this behaviour from anyone. We are working with the stadium and the club to get all the facts. The Integrity Unit will investigate fully. We will stand behind our players and commend them for calling out this behaviour.”

Penrith posted their first win of the year with Nathan Cleary shaking off an ankle injury he suffered just before half-time.

Stream the NRL Premiership 2023 live and free on 9Now.

Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.