Wales gained their first victory since last season's RBS 6 Nations Championship by predictably subduing Millennium Stadium visitors Fiji, but there was little to worry world champions New Zealand.
The All Blacks will roll into Cardiff next week for the latest instalment in a fixture they have not lost for 61 years. And Wales will need to considerably up the ante after a stop-start display against 14-man Fiji saw them triumph 17-13 through tries by wings George North and Alex Cuthbert, plus a penalty try, while Rhys Priestland kicked one conversion.
Centre Nemani Nadolo kicked two first-half penalties and converted his late interception try for the visitors, who had prop Campese Ma'afu sent off early in the second period on receipt of a second yellow card.
Wales coach Warren Gatland admitted to a sense of disappointment and frustration over his team's performance. He said: "We weren't clinical enough and we had too many turnovers that allowed them to stay in the game. It was a bit of a dogfight.
"We made a number of changes and we felt the team was strong. We were pretty frustrated by a number of officials' decisions that went on in the middle, and it didn't help with the flow of the game and continuity.
"In fairness to Fiji, they went out there to try to slow the game down, and they were effective at doing that. For us, it was the number of turnovers that were frustrating, but we've got to look forward to next week.
"We are expecting the All Blacks to come fully loaded, and it's going to be tough, but you have got to be excited about playing the best team in the world."
Fiji coach John McKee also admitted to being frustrated, although it was an encouraging display ahead of his team's next meeting with Wales at the 2015 World Cup.
"We probably didn't impose ourselves as much as we would have liked in the first half," McKee said. In the second half, it was a tremendously gutsy performance with 14 players, but we are disappointed at losing. We came here to try to win the game."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article