Wales icon Mike Phillips has taken aim at Warren Gatland as the 61-year-old struggles to turn his team’s form around. Gatland returned to take charge of the Welsh team for a second time in December 2022 but has found success hard to come by.
Wales have been unable to finish above fifth place in their two Six Nations campaigns under Gatland and exited the Rugby World Cup at the quarter-final stage last year.
The team suffered a humiliating 24-19 home defeat to Fiji on Sunday, with that result meaning Wales have now lost 10 matches on the bounce, their joint-worst run of results in history.
Gatland attempted to take the positives as he spoke to the TNT Sports cameras in the aftermath of Sunday’s result.
But Phillips wasn’t having any of it as he replied to the video on X (formerly Twitter): “Loads of positives yeah, you’re on 600k a year and don’t even have to win! How the WRU bring this guy back is just nuts! Laughing all the way to the bank,” he wrote.
Gatland enjoyed a successful first stint in charge of Wales between 2008 and 2019 as he won over half of his matches and led his team to the semi-finals of the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
That spell also saw him selected as the head coach of the British & Irish Lions for their 2013 and 2017 summer tours, an honour he was given once again in 2021.
Scrum-half Phillips was a mainstay in Gatland’s teams for years and won 94 caps for his country, with his final appearance coming in 2015.
But the 42-year-old clearly didn’t like the way his international career came to an end and took aim at Gatland in a second post on X.
“When I see this guy talking about family makes me cringe. Did he speak to me at the end of my career, did he f! I won for this guy,” he added.
“This bloke is only out for himself, and it kills me to see all this bullshit praise he’s getting. He deserves to be kicked out, like he did to so many quality Welsh players.”
Gatland will be hoping to stem the flow of losses when Wales host Australia at the Principality Stadium on Sunday.
Gatland led his team to victory over the Wallabies at last year’s Rugby World Cup, with Australia facing plenty of struggles of their own in recent years.
And Wales will end their Autumn Internationals series with the visit of world champions South Africa on Saturday, November 23.
