Gatland left deflated

Wales head coach Warren Gatland admitted he was left "embarrassed" following Saturday's 43-17 rout by South Africa at Vodacom Park.

Full-back Jamie Roberts and winger Shane Williams scored tries but otherwise the Grand Slam winners were put to the sword by the ruthless Springboks.

"South Africa thoroughly deserved to win the game. We were well beaten and dominated by a better side," he said.

It was Gatland's first defeat since taking over in January and the Kiwi refused to excuse Wales' error-strewn and indisciplined performance.

"I don't feel we earned the respect we wanted to - not just the players, but the management too. Quite frankly I'm pretty embarrassed by that performance.

"We spoke about coming here and competing physically with the Springboks but we didn't do that.

"The players will go away and see it as a big challenge to improve for next week. We're not making any excuses because we weren't good enough.

"I don't like losing too much so I'm hurting. There are no excuses for the performance. We were well beaten."

Conrad Jantjes, Jean de Villiers, Pierre Spies and Percy Montgomery scored tries for South Africa, who bristled with intent throughout.

"Our handling was poor and our discipline in terms of the number of penalties we gave away was bad," said Gatland. That didn't help us stay in the game. They kept the scoreboard ticking over, which was disappointing."