"Animosity runs deep to this day" - 5 players who were blacklisted by coaches - and why

Roberts, Wales captain on the 2017 summer tour five months earlier, originally had been left out of Warren Gatland's autumn squad, but earned a recall when regular centre ally Jonathan Davies was injured. He played in the third November Test versus New Zealand, next up were the Springboks.

However, after being told he'd be sacked by Quins if he played in the game outside the international window, he departed the Wales camp and would never play again.

On the issue, Roberts wrote: "If time is a healer, a good deal of water is yet to pass under this bridge. The animosity runs deep to this day."

Former England stat Kyran Bracken first revealed why the Quins playmaker was mysteriously frozen out of Jones plans in 2018 despite being a regular up until that point.

“He (Care) made the mistake of speaking his mind to Eddie Jones and questioning how he wanted him to play when he was playing with an England ‘B’ team against Japan in the autumn of 2018,” said Bracken. The scrum-half was reportedly

“Eddie’s response to that was ‘that’s not the attitude I want’ and he binned him from his plans.”

This story was later backed up by England and Harlequins teammate Mike Brown.

DID YOU KNOW? At age 11 he was invited to join the Academy at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club which meant giving up club rugby union for a fw years

Folau reached a settlement with Rugby Australia (RA) over his controversial sacking for writing anti-gay posts on social media back in 2019. He will definitely pull on the gold jersey ever again, though he could make an international return with Tonga if laws change.

Brown wrote in his column: ‘I’d had one of my best seasons for Quins (2018/19) with really good attacking stats (2019), but Eddie had pigeon-holed me as a defensive full-back. At the end of this meeting, he asked if I had anything I wanted to say.

“I challenged his comments that I was just a defensive full-back, saying I thought I had been adding value to the attack, with examples and stats from my season, before saying I would take away all of his points and that I would do everything I could to get into the World Cup squad.

“He did not like that I had contested what he said and went mad. He shouted: ‘Well you lost the f****** ball in contact on Saturday, didn’t you? That’s f****** not good enough. You’re not f****** doing everything you can.'”

Ultimately, Brown wouldn’t be picked for the Rugby World Cup with Jones saying that his clash with teammate Ben Te’o had nothing to do with his omission. He’s not been picked since.

DID YOU KNOW? He married long term partner, fashion designer Eliza Scarlett Woodcock, the daughter of former England international footballer Tony Woodcock in 2016

Marler and Warren Gatland didn't exactly see eye-to-eye during the 2017 tour of New Zealand with Marler himself admitting his 'bulls*** behaviour' put him out of contention for the 2021 installment.

“I don’t think I ever got close enough to blow smoke up his a***,” laughed Marler.

“I found him quite an awkward character, which says a lot really because I tend to surround myself with awkward characters!

He added: “To be fair, Gats has been on God knows how many Lions tours, won God knows how many trophies.

“Before the Lions, my first contact with him was him dropping me a message of support after Gypsy-Gate.

“It had all blown up and he said: ‘Don’t worry about it, keep your head down’ out of the blue.

“I’m sure he’s a good bloke and he’s got a good heart. It’s just a couple of my experiences of him were interesting to say the least. I don't think he liked me and that's probably fair.”