Wales coach Warren Gatland pleased with effort

Coach Warren Gatland was pleased with Wales' overall performance in their 23-19 defeat by England at Twickenham.

The visitors scored three tries to England's two in the World Cup warm-up and they meet again in Cardiff next Saturday, 13 August.

Wales lost Morgan Stoddart to a broken leg and Stephen Jones to a calf strain, but Gatland was otherwise satisfied.

"We're pretty happy with that. We've scored three tries to their two," said the New Zealander.

"We've put in a strong second-half performance and we can build on it.

"We can improve on our accuracy but our first-up tackling was pretty good and it's a good start for us overall."

Gatland also hailed stand-in skipper Sam Warburton as "one of the best sevens in the northern hemisphere".

Wing Shane Williams, who scored his 54th Wales try on his 80th appearance, took confidence from his team's strong finish.

At one point England led 20-7 but the visiting team finished the match just four points adrift of their opponents

The 34-year-old Osprey said: "The fitness work we've done worked because we kept going right to the end.

"We also played some nice rugby and scored a few tries. The first game is always a bit rusty and England were the same.

"But, to be fair to them, in the end they deserved it because their play in a few areas was a bit more clever than ours."

Wales' pre-World Cup fixtures ends with a Millennium Stadium clash against Argentina on Saturday, 20 August.

Two days later Gatland announces his 30-strong squad to travel to his homeland for the tournament, where they face South Africa, Fiji, Samoa and Namibia at the group stage.