‘Irish d***head’: Warren Gatland reveals his troll's 'sinister' ongoing campaign

Wales head coach Warren Gatland has revealed how he was the subjected to an ongoing trolling campaign as recent as this year's Rugby World Cup after they acquired his real phone number.

In the wake of Owen Farrell's decision to step down from international duty, Gatland shared empathy for Farrell and his family in his column penned for the Daily Telegraph.

He revealed that he has had an ongoing ordeal with an "Irish d***head" who is roughly the same age as the Kiwi head coach, with the Dublin-based troll sending him sarcastic and antagonising messages before and after big games for Wales.

"At first I thought the messages were just a joke from a mate. I had previously lived in Ireland, and it just came up as a message from an Irish number," he wrote.

"Yet the messages kept coming, not many but about half a dozen times a year, usually if we had lost a game, attempting to make a sarcastic comment or jibe. It was then I realised it was not a joke, but something more sinister.

"To make sure I knew the messages were coming from the troll, I saved his number under the name ‘Irish d***head’.

"Then, during the Six Nations I received a message from the same number, but this time his name came up on his WhatsApp message profile. Perhaps he didn’t realise, or perhaps he just didn’t care.

"I looked him up on the internet and established that he appeared to be a managing director of some company in Dublin."

It was when Gatland replied with the man's real name that he thought the messages would stop but the troll recently sent him a text that read 'Waltzing Matilda...' before the World Cup pool game against Australia before Wales dispatched them 40-6.

The Kiwi head coach was left "unsettled" by the exchanges with an unknown person being able to contact him at any time.

His experience firmed his belief that "things have gone too far" on what is a "sad day for rugby" that a competitor like Owen Farrell won't be playing next year's Six Nations.