Steve Hansen pays tribute to Scott Quinnell.
‘He is a great man. The mark of a great player is what he does between his first and his last cap and looking at Scott he has done plenty. I and everybody in Welsh rugby now wish him all the best.
‘He is going to be hard to replace, but it is now up to the other players to take the responsibility of filling his shoes.
‘It was a decision he clearly took after a long time talking to his family and it would not have been right and proper for me to try and change his mind,’ said Hansen.
Former Wales captain Quinnell was given a guard-of-honour by both teams, as he walked off the Millennium Stadium pitch with his three young children.
‘The spectators were fantastic,’ said Quinnell.
‘I just want to thank the spectators for everything they have given me over the last nine years.
‘It was fantastic what they did, that’s what rugby is all about. It was a special moment and one I will never forget but now I am looking forward to being with the family and watching the kids grow up.’
Captain Colin Charvis knows there is more work to do if Wales are to beat New Zealand.
‘We are really going to have to batten down the hatches and work hard in training in the week so that we can move up a few more gears for New Zealand.
‘We have to be glad of victory but it was not the kind of intensity of last week which is disappointing.
‘From watching the way New Zealand played against England, they are a very strong squad and I’m sure we’ll try and pick something up during the next week about the way we play.’
Hansen was in thoughtful mood after the Canada match.
‘We are on a long road and there are going to be hic-cups along the way and today was one of them,’ added Hansen.
‘It was not the sort of performance that when you put your head on the pillow at night you are happy about. But 12 months ago it was the sort of game we would have lost.
‘There are things we have to work on before we face New Zealand but we won’t be pushing the panic button.’
Debutant Vernon Cooper said.
‘It was quite tough against Canada. The opening period was always going to be hard,’ he said.
‘They are a physical bunch up front and didn’t want to give much for the whole game. We always knew they were going to grind it out for 80 minutes. It’s a good job we got the win in the end.
‘They had a strong pack, a good line-out and quite a strong scrum early on as well. They really took the game to us.
‘We made quite a few handling errors that we didn’t do last week so we made it hard for ourselves.
‘It was an odd game. It wasn’t the fluent game we had against Fiji. We weren’t attacking or making the breaks.’
What do you think. Have our say on the wru.co.uk messageboard
