Wales strength in depth increasing - Earnshaw

Wales head coach Craig Bellamy will reap the rewards of fielding a much-changed team in Tuesday's friendly defeat to Canada, according to former Wales striker Rob Earnshaw.

A youthful Wales succumbed 1-0 to the joint hosts of next year's World Cup, alongside the USA and Mexico, to hand Bellamy only his second defeat in 12 matches as boss.

"Not from a fan perspective or an enjoyment perspective, but in one sense it was great that Craig Bellamy learnt a lot," Earnshaw told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

"What he did was threw in some of the young players and said listen, this is going to be as big a challenge as you get, we're going to throw it at you and this is going to help you for later on."

He added: "It's not going to be pretty now but later on it helps you improve, and that's what he did, but results-wise obviously I didn't like it, I wanted Wales to win."

Bellamy has said he will be praying that his Wales players stay fit ahead of a friendly against England and then a crucial World Cup qualifier against Belgium in October.

But Earnshaw believes Wales now have better depth to call upon should injuries strike.

"Craig made eight changes from the Kazakhstan win," said Earnshaw, who scored 16 goals in 59 games for Wales.

"When you look at the people who came in, people like David Brooks, Mark Harris, Jordan James, I was thinking 'we've got some good young players'.

"Arguably they might even start some [competitive] games as well, so in one sense I think we've got a bit of depth now.

"Some of the young players are not quite ready yet, but when I look at the attacking side of it we've got some options there, so it's not so bad.

"Craig has a few dilemmas next month when we play Belgium, because if everyone is fit there will be one or two positions where he'll take one or two extra days to pick some positions."

An unusually fiery friendly game at the Swansea.com Stadium saw tempers flare on and off the field, with seven yellow cards and the Wales staff taking issue with their Canadian counterparts for celebrating before the final whistle was blown.

"I was looking across and I'm seeing [Canada manager] Jesse Marsch... with about 45 seconds to go [until the final whistle] he's high-fiving his bench and I knew - because I've been with Craig Bellamy for so long, he's been a team-mate of mine - he was raging and unhappy," added Earnshaw.

"That wasn't great but at least it wasn't a normal friendly; there was a little bite in there, competition, and I think overall we'd prefer that.

"I hope we're going to be playing them [at the World Cup], because that'll be a nice game."