WARREN Gatland has said that Rhys Priestland was on the brink of quitting rugby after the Wales fly-half was "hammered" by internet trolls.

The 27-year-old Scarlets back will pull the strings for Wales when he wears 10 against Fiji in Cardiff on Saturday afternoon.

It comes after certain sections of the crowd jeered him when he came off the bench in last weekend's 33-28 defeat to Australia at the Millennium Stadium.

Former Wales captain Ryan Jones labelled the boo boys "a disgrace" and now Gatland has urged his number 10 to "stick two fingers up" at his critics.

"I only heard yesterday that he was booed," said the New Zealander. "I suppose it's part of sport now – Tottenham got booed at the weekend, didn't they?

"The way with social media and stuff and criticism, you feel for Rhys a little bit because he's been hammered on social media by certain sections.

"He is a confidence player. You hate to see it. He's a young man who at one stage contemplated giving the game away because it wasn't worth taking that sort of personal criticism.

"I thought he did pretty well when he came on at the weekend.

"I just hope he goes out, plays well and puts two fingers up to the section of the crowd that may have been booing him last week. It's something I don't think we need in the game.

"We don't always agree, but that's the beauty of sport. You disagree with someone and that's fine, but you'd like to see there's a bit of respect out there for people who are trying to do their best.

"He doesn't go out there to put that jersey on and fail."

In 2012 Priestland revealed that he had sought the help of a sports psychologist after losing confidence following a series of under-par displays.

"I wasn't really enjoying rugby, especially at the start of the autumn internationals I didn't really want to be on the field," he said last year.