Welsh Rugby Union | Wales & Regions

‘We’ve come a long way and each of the games we’ve played have offered us a different challenge.

‘It’s the end of the Autumn series and overall you could say that I’m quite pleased with the four games.

‘We now need to build on this and keep on working hard. It’s better to be playing hard games such as matches against New Zealand as it gives us an opportunity to improve.

‘At the end of the day it was a very competitive game despite the end result.

‘I think the final score flatters them. Perhaps we lost a little composure in the last five minutes but I don’t think we deserved that.

‘I’m disappointed because my players worked hard and did themselves proud but they won’t get the credit they deserve.

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Captain Colin Charvis said: ‘I thought we held up pretty well. We were in with a shout of nicking it at the end but perhaps we just lost a little composure and a key time.

‘We started one month ago with 30 players. A few have come in and a few have gone out.

‘But the most crucial thing is that we’ve bonded as a squad and that’s very important.’

Jamie Robinson

‘We defended very well and the effort from the whole team was great.

‘We all believed that we could win, it was just a matter of taking the game to New Zealand and hopefully just sticking with it.

‘With five minutes to go we were still in the game, but then we turned the ball over on our 22 and they managed to take the game off us.

‘We were losing 22-17, but going down three tries in the last five minutes was a real kick in the teeth.’

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Man of the series Martyn Williams said: ‘We can be positive because we had a lot of young boys out there who held their hands up and competed at that level.

‘The first Howlett try off what looked clearly like a forward pass was a killer. That put us 19-10 behind and little things like that just didn’t go our way.

‘I don’t think anyone could say fitness was an issue on this occasion. We have a mental problem to overcome, but New Zealand are also used to the intensity of playing for 85 and 90 minutes and we are not.’