Welsh rugby referee Nigel Owens doesn’t like to be made a mug of, unless it’s by Abergavenny artist Mal Humphreys, as a recent war of words on Twitter poignantly proved.

Roasting a football fan is all in a day’s work for the famous official of egg throwing and catching, and the former World Referee of the Year was in fine fettle and fiery form when it came to a bit of argy-bargy on social media regarding some mug or other.

As we all know, many a malcontent can be found lurking like a patient virus on Twitter, Facebook and all the other popular platforms of vicarious existence.

And when Nigel Owen innocently retweeted a picture of his signature mug made by his good pal Mal, with the caption, “Looking for a Christmas gift. Why not have a cuppa in one of these,” one of those fiendish breeds reared up and viciously bit the hand which so innocently tweeted.

Mal’s mug making firm, Mugbys, specializes in creating signature mugs based on famous Welsh sporting personalities, and one of the company’s most popular products is the ‘This is not soccer’ mug, emblazoned with a caricature of Nigel, alongside a short verse which reads, “Nigel’s our man with the whistle, his reffing insightful and proper. He keep things on track, so don’t answer back. Best remember bach, this is not soccer!”

Nigel’s popular catchphrase has earned legendary status since the ref with attitude delivered it in 2012 at the end of a lengthy lecture to Bennetton Treviso scrum-half Tobias Bates who was complaining about Munster captain Paul O’ Connell not releasing at the ruck.

Yet Mal’s mug of Nigel appeared to ruffle a few feathers when it appeared on Twitter, and one user in particular, going by the name of hognater, appeared to take great offence at Nigel’s gesture of helping a mate out.

The unhappy hog tweeted, “If you were a soccer ref you wouldn’t have to flog tacky cups to make ends meet.”

This enraged our Nigel no end and he tweeted straight back, “If you had some rugby values in you as a person then you would know that’s not what it’s about. A mate sells them not me.”

Not finished with the hognater, Owens added, “And it’s not about the cup its about what’s in them when you drink it. Bit like a person I guess. What inside you that counts.”

And just to ram home his point, the ref who appeared quite animated at this point, signed off with, “Have a nice day now. I enjoy watching soccer. It is a beautiful game. As are most the people in it. Some not so much obviously.”

The hognater refused to take Nigel’s vitriolic verbal volleys lying down though, and tweeted in response to a Rugby Lad article which claIms Owens absolutely roasted him that it wasn’t the case at all.

“By roasting, I assume they mean he got badly rattled by a tame enough comment and blocked the individual who made valid and concise points.”

Oh well gentleman, it’s time to put your handbags down, as someone once said, “This is not soccer.”

Besides which, Christmas is coming, and all this arguing on Twitter has done wonders for the sales of Mugbys.

Mal told the Chronicle, “Since the Twitter meltdown, sales of ‘The This is not Soccer’ Mugby have gone through the roof. We’ve been inundated with orders. Particularly from Ireland for some reason.”

And in case you’re wondering. The ‘This is not Soccer’ Mugby’ is available in Abergavenny’s Cariad Gift shop. So brew up everyone.