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"What annoys me is when former players criticise the boys but they don't know what's going on in the camp and don't have anything to do with the team," said Hansen.

"They don't have the balls to do it face to face, they just attack us from the outside," added the coach, in an outburst believed to be aimed at former Wales dual-code international Jonathan Davies.

Rugby pundit and former Wales full-back Paul Thorburn was quick to respond to Hansen's outburst, describing the Kiwi coach as "pig headed."

He (Hansen) is so pig headed that he won't listen to what others have to say Former Wales full-back Paul Thorburn

"He (Hansen) forgets that some of us have been trying to get in, but because the likes of him and Scott Johnson are there from the other ends of the world there's no room for former Welsh internationals," Thorburn told BBC Wales.

"Hansen and Johnson are being paid half a million pounds, but they won't even pay us mileage to join the squad.

"He (Hansen) is so pig headed that he won't listen to what others have to say."

HAVE YOUR SAY What the hell makes Thorburn think that he or any of the other former internationals would be any good? From Trebor Koons Join the Scrum V debate

It seems, then, that open war has broken out between the Wales coach and his media critics before a ball has been kicked in anger in Australia.

Only the results from Down Under will decide who is left licking their wounds in November.