Shane Williams’ Wales verdict: Poor scrum performance remains my big concern

Message to all Welsh rugby fans – don't panic! As far as World Cup warm-up games go what happened against Ireland is very much par for the course. It wasn't great, it wasn't what everyone had hoped for, but it will have absolutely no relevance on what happens at the World Cup itself.
There will be plenty of players hurting, as they should be, and there will be plenty of players who will feel disappointed at their performance. But that was this game was always going to be about – sorting out the wheat from the chaff!
This week's practice patch in north Wales will now be the last chance saloon for up to 10 players in the extended squad. Some of those who played against the Irish will have signed their own exit notes and probably made the decision for Warren Gatland and his coaching staff a little bit easier.
Warren made the comment last week that it was difficult to coach effectively when there are 40 players or more on the field. Once he cuts that number down to around the 35/36 mark he will probably be able to spend more time with individuals, units and in phases of play.
Up until now, all the work the Welsh players will have been doing will have been centred around fitness and Warren will have had very little coaching input. That will change when the squad is pruned.
I used to do a lot of one-on-one work with Shaun Edwards when I was in the squad and I know that Warren used to like to talk individually to players and hear their views. He will get the chance to do that more and more over the coming weeks as the numbers in the squad reduce.
You could see that everyone was under pressure and nervous and I felt sorry for some of the new caps. So much was expected of them and it simply didn't happen for them because of the nervous tension – we looked lethargic.
I thought Tyler Morgan recovered pretty well after dropping an early ball and he got more and more into the game. And Ross Moriarty looked nervous, got a yellow card and dropped a few balls.
At times it was a dire performance from the Welsh team and the urgency in defence was very poor, especially at the start of the two halves. There were a lot of missed tackles and mistakes which simply aren't acceptable at this level. Too many of the Irish tries were simple scores.
Having climbed a couple of mountains and crossed a few streams in Switzerland, and undergone intense heat therapy in Doha, it was obvious the team were going to feel ‘leggy' in their first outing and short on match practice Small crumbs of comfort maybe when you have just lost by five tries to three to the Six Nations champions' 2nd XV, but nobody was holding out too much hope, or putting any real emphasis, on the result of this game. That said, the return game in Dublin on August 29 will be a different kettle of fish – by then I'd expect to see a completely different team and a completely different level of performance.
What does concern me is the performance of the Welsh scrum and what we are going to do on the tighthead side. We don't seem to be solid enough in that position and something needs to be done about it.
There were simply too many mistakes made with the ball in hand across the board and the only consolation was that we scored a few good tries in the end. Justin Tipuric was superb, but there were too few others who put up there hand on a pretty miserable day.
What a week for the Southern Hemisphere element of Pool A at the World Cup! Fiji beat Samoa to win the Pacific Nations tournament and Australia made a clean sweep of the Rugby Championship to take that title with a stunning 27-19 triumph over the All Blacks.
The Wallabies have been bubbling under the radar ever since the last World Cup and Michael Cheika certainly seems to have them building nicely and believing in themselves a month out from the big test. Don't forget it was Australia who won the World Cup in 1991 and 1999 when it was last hosted by the UK.
The worrying thing is they haven't played their best rugby yet, but the experiment of putting David Pocock and Michael Hooper in the same back-row worked perfectly against the All Blacks. They had eight turnovers in the first-half alone against the All Blacks.
But perhaps the most worrying sight was that of the Aussie scrum dominating the world champions. That is supposed to be the biggest weakness in the Australian game, but Cheika seems to have found a way to fix it.
They also looked very dangerous when they had the ball and are keen to play a very high tempo game. If they can go one better this weekend and win the Bledisloe Cup for the first time in a decade by beating New Zealand again in Auckland then we had better all look out!
As for Fiji, they look as though they could upset a major team once again at the World Cup after their strong showing at the Pacific Nations competition. They have got some incredibly powerful strike runners behind the scrum and a team that loves to take the game to the opposition.
I wonder if they could achieve the impossible and beat England in the opening game of the World Cup at Twickenham?