Ex-Wales halfback Mike Phillips launches brutal attack on Kiwi Warren Gatland amid 10-test losing streak

Mike Phillips, the former Wales halfback, has launched an X-rated verbal attack on head coach Warren Gatland following Wales’s first home defeat by Fiji on Monday (NZ time).

Wales are on a 10-test losing streak dating back to last year’s World Cup quarter-final defeat against Argentina, having finished bottom of the Six Nations before losing to South Africa and Australia over the summer. They have also slipped to 11th in World Rugby’s rankings.

In response to a video of Gatland’s post-match press interview with TNT Sports, Phillips issued a scathing assessment of the New Zealander, despite playing under his guidance for seven years until his international retirement in 2015.

“Loads of positives yeah, you’re on 600k a year and don’t even have to win! [clapping emojis],” wrote Phillips on X. “How the WRU bring this guy back is just nuts! Laughing all the way to the bank [clapping and thumbs up emoji]. The problems are not at [sic] who’s coaching Wales!”

Phillips added: “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.

“This bloke is only out for himself, and it kills me to see all this b****** praise he’s getting. He deserves to be kicked out, like he did to so many quality Welsh players.”

The loss was the latest unfortunate landmark for Wales in recent years, having lost to Italy at home for the first time in 2022 and to Georgia for the first time later that year.

Phillips played under Gatland between 2008 and 2015, and was selected for the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia in 2013 when Gatland was head coach.

The pair notably fell out following that tour, with Phillips discussing his relationship with Gatland in his book, Half Truths, when the halfback revealed that he almost left the Wales camp to fly home on his own following a defeat by Ireland.

Phillips went on to write about Gatland: “When he first came in, there was no ego with Gats, but my honest opinion is that he began to enjoy the fame.”

Phillips also questioned why Gatland had returned to Wales at the start of 2023.

Speaking on The Offload podcast in February last year, Phillips said: “He’s gone down to New Zealand and he’s barely won a game. Why has he taken this [Wales] role? He had the perfect story as Welsh coach – he came in with a Grand Slam, he left with a Grand Slam, he had a Grand Slam in the middle. People love him. That was like the perfect ending so it just seems ... what’s his ‘Why?, to come back and coach?

“Is it purely for money or what’s the reason? Is it because he perhaps didn’t have the success he wanted down in New Zealand? Listening to his after-match and pre-match, he seems like a different person.”