WALES have grown so accustomed to heavy defeats on their ventures south of the equator that Saturday's reverse at Ballymore was almost claimed as a moral victory.

Wales scored three second-half tries - more than they had managed in their previous four internationals away to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand - but the spoils had been lost long before.

Australia won comfortably, but were generally unconvincing. Committed to a running game, their line-out was poor, some of their handling was slipshod and there was an understandable lack of organisation at times.

Wales persevered and matched Australia for fitness, but their forwards were overrun and their backs were short of ideas. Although the scrum-half Howley and the full-back Proctor had their moments, Wales made so many errors in defence and in attack that it was always a question of how much the Wallabies would win by.

"We cannot go on getting stuffed," said the Welsh Rugby Union's director of rugby Terry Cobner. "If we do not change we will come out here in four years and get hammered again. We have to make drastic reforms. We only have ourselves to blame for the fact that the gap between Wales and the best continues to grow wider."

Australia took just 56 seconds to break down the Welsh defence. The second row Morgan made a thundering charge into the visitors' midfield and the centre Roff cantered in unopposed.

Wales had fielded the kick-off but gave the ball away, and they were equally as profligate when Australia kicked off, again following a Jenkins penalty.

Howley's clearance kick was fielded by Burke and the hooker Caputo bullied his way over. Caputo was prominent in the loose but wayward with his throwing into the line-out where he found Wales's impressive number eight Williams.

Australia increased their interval lead of 25-6 into 42-6 after 54 minutes but Wales rallied. Proctor charged down Burke's kick to score in the corner, Taylor took three defenders over the line with him and Llewellyn crossed after a quickly-taken penalty, but Australia were by then coasting.

"We won a Test match by more than 30 points without ever playing well," said Australia's coach Greg Smith. "Wales will improve before the second Test and so, I hope, will we. We made several errors, you are bound to in a high-risk, handling game."