Jarrad McVeigh.

"It's more of an education thing for young people, to learn that it's totally unacceptable": Jarrad McVeigh. Photo: Sebastian Costanzo

Swans co-captain Jarrad McVeigh believes the alleged racial vilification of Adam Goodes on Friday night should serve as a lesson to all young people that there is no place for racism anywhere in society.

McVeigh, a close friend of Goodes, said the club would stand behind its star player, who he described as ''a really strong person and proud of his heritage''. He said the young girl at the heart of the incident will feel the consequences of her actions, but responsibility was not hers alone.

''Her parents probably have to play a big role in what happened,'' McVeigh said from Melbourne on Saturday. ''There's obviously a lot of work to be done there and she'll have to go through a process. It's more of an education thing for young people, to learn that it's totally unacceptable. She'll have to learn from that. She probably won't be able to see a game of footy for a long time.''

The Swans won comfortably in what McVeigh believed was their best performance of the season. But it was overshadowed by the incident, which occurred late in the game. The match was the first in the AFL's Indigenous Round.

''It's not acceptable at any time, but especially the round when we're celebrating the indigenous players and community,'' McVeigh said. ''It's really disappointing. You hope that type of stuff is not in footy any more. But obviously we've still got a lot of work to do.'' McVeigh referred to an incident in a match two years ago when Magpie Dale Thomas pointed out a Collingwood fan who racially vilified Gold Coast's Joel Wilkinson. He said, however, he had never personally encountered such behaviour. ''Any player who hears something like that wouldn't be happy,'' he said.

''I'm glad Goodesy made a stand that we won't accept that. I'm glad he put a stop to it straight away.

''We spoke to him afterwards. Obviously he was upset. He understands what the process will have to be. He was upset but he was still trying to put on a brave face. He had had a very good game for us and it probably overshadowed that.''

McVeigh ''thought very highly'' of Collingwood president Eddie McGuire's visit to the Swans' rooms to apologise. It had been a huge win for the Swans. ''Last time we played at the MCG we didn't play too well against the Hawks. To come down and beat Collingwood was a good effort. They had a lot of injuries but we really wanted to put in a good performance. That was definitely our best performance of the year … The midfielders' two-way running last night was very good and it just seemed to flow for us. Our ball movement was a lot better and our defensive pressure made it an all-round really good performance.''