Warren Gatland was quick to laud Shane Williams and Stephen Jones after watching Wales earn a 33-16 victory over Argentina.
Wales chief singles out Williams and Jones after Pumas win
Wales coach Warren Gatland was quick to laud Shane Williams and Stephen Jones after watching his side earn a 33-16 victory over Argentina at the Millennium Stadium.
Wales' record try-scorer, Williams illuminated an often sluggish encounter with two well-taken scores while fly-half Stephen Jones chipped in with 17 points - including an opportunistic try of his own.
Of Williams, Gatland stated: "Shane is such a talented rugby player. It's great if you have got two, three or four players in your team with the x-factor, and we are lucky to have some of those."
Gatland went on to compare Jones to "a good red wine", adding: "Stephen is like a good red wine, he gets better with age.
"We are pleased with that performance, it was a step up from the first couple of games (in the autumn). We played some good rugby, there were a lot of positives.
"We still feel there is another level in us and it is about improving game by game, week on week.
"The next step is try to get our percentage of wins up to 75%, but we are pleased with the progress we are making. It's about putting pressure on ourselves.
"We went out there today and played some really good rugby."
Captain content
Skipper Ryan Jones also declared himself highly satisfied with the display as Wales clinched just a third win from their last seven encounters with the Pumas.
"We are happy," he said. "The boys stood proud, we defended superbly and we've got two wins out of three in this autumn campaign.
"It is about dusting ourselves off now for next weekend against Australia. We made a few errors but we are improving. We did more things right than we did wrong.
"I liken Shane to a Premiership football striker. He's a predator, someone you always want walking out of the tunnel with you, and Stephen is a world-class number 10."
Argentines upset with display
For their part, Argentina struggled to build on their ruggedly effective performance against England last weekend and were made to pay for a largely impotent attacking display.
Despite receiving the man-of-the-match award for his efforts, captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe was far from happy at the final whistle.
"Wales spoke all week about trying to attack us but the tries we conceded were soft ones and you just cannot do that at this level," he mused ruefully.
"With the first try we lost concentration. We got ourselves in the mode that he (Jones) was going to kick for goal.
"I haven't seen a try like that in years at this level and we are really disappointed with ourselves. I believe everyone in the stadium thought he was going to kick for goal.
"I was also a little bit frustrated with the way the scrum was refereed. I am not an expert in that area but it was very tough on our loosehead prop Rodrigo Roncero. He was getting penalised all the time."
