LIST: 5 epic rugby union spats on Twitter

But collided they have, leading some of most brilliantly hilarious and cringe worthy banter in sporting history. 

Particularly when the rugby stars take it upon themselves to have a right pop at each other – the hashtaggable equivalent of shouting "Oi, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!" from across the park.

To celebrate, here are five of Twitter's most epic footballer spats. 

Haskell was caught in an online row with World Cup-winner, Neil Back. The spat began when Hask retweeted an official post from the England Rugby account, in which Haskell calls upon Saturday's Manchester crowd to get behind the team.

The Wasps captain quickly hit back at the former Leicester flanker's slight...

Tom Wood became embroiled in a Twitter dispute with Harlequins hooker Dave Ward over comments he made regarding the England captaincy following the disastrous 2015 Rugby World Cup campaign.

The Northampton Saints back-row admitted that should he be offered the chance to succeed Robshaw, he would step up to the task to lead his country.

"Reading @tomwood678 article in the Mail, with friends like that who needs enemies? How about the 47 pens you gave against Wales?” Ward posted on Twitter.

Wood responded: "What exactly has upset u? You seem to have acquired a stronger voice since our last chat?"

Ward answered: "Voice has always been strong just know when 2 use it. I can teach u sometime if you want, kicking a man when he's down is never the 1."

Wood responded: "Direct message me ur [sic] number so we can have a chat. Who's been kicked? What article? Ring me and stop talking tough on here."

Rather than meet Wood’s demands, Ward posted a video of him turning over Wood during a match between Quins and Saints, and added the message: "Lesson 1 how to turn the ball over."

Wood ended the conversation by posting: "Ok that's enough. I'm assuming your account has been hacked or you've lost a bet #no bottle."

Ward went on to delete his tweets, before adding that he is “old enough to know better”.

Niall Horan was watching the Six Nations in 2014 when Ireland won 26-3 against Wales in Dublin, and decided to goad scrum-half Mike Phillips.

In the dying stages of the game, Phillips clashed with Rob Keaney, which caused the singer to quickly take to his Twitter account to write: "Mike Philips is like a child throwing his toys out of the pram! his attitude is terrible, looks like a right arrogant idiot."

But Phillips didn't take this insult lying down, and responded with: "@NiallOfficial come down to training in the week big boy. Bring the rest of The Beatles with you."

The war of words begun when Martina Navratilova stood up for defeated Wimbledon finalist Marin Cilic in 2017.

Former England international Austin Healey was drawn into a heated Twitter spat with Josh Gardner from the Blood & Mud Podcast. Fair to say he give as good as he got: