Wales licking wounds despite win over Japan - Dan Lydiate

Wales flanker Dan Lydiate stated that his team's performance against Japan left a lot to be desired despite finishing on the winning side.

Wales started their autumn internationals with their biggest defeat at home after losing the game 8-42 to the Wallabies. However, they bounced back with a 24-20 victory over Argentina next.

In their previous game against Japan at Millennium Stadium, the scores were levelled at 30-30 and replacement Sam Davies scored the decisive drop goal in the final minute to help Wales secure a three-point victory.

"We are licking our wounds," he said. "We were too loose at times, and we got punished for it.

"If we do that next week it's not going to be a pretty scoreline. We want to build on each week, and today (Saturday) wasn't good enough, but we will put that to bed and train hard for next week.

"We took a step back from a good win against Argentina last week."

Wales' next Test will be against South Africa and they have lost 28 out of the 31 games played against them. The last time these two teams played in Cardiff was in 2014 and it was Wales, who emerged victorious by a six-point margin.

South Africa have not been in the best of form recently as evident from their defeats to England and Italy and a draw against the Barbarians and Lydiate expects Allister Coetzee's men to bounce back hard on Saturday.

"They will be wanting to finish the autumn internationals on a high, and there will certainly be a backlash coming," Lydiate added.

"Hopefully, we can up our game. We need to step up, really.

"They are one of the most physical teams in world rugby, there is no doubt about that, and if you don't stop them it's going to be a hard day at the office and there will be a high scoreline.

"Whoever is selected, it's going to be a tough challenge, but I am sure the boys will definitely step up.

"In recent years we've come up short (against southern hemisphere teams). We got a win over them in 2014, and if we can get the result this time then three (wins) out of four is not too bad in an autumn series.

"We've won the last two games, which is always good, but we need to keep building on performances.

"If we get the result next week, all you will remember are the results, not the spluttering in performance."

Lydiate's first try of his 59-Test career for Wales came against Japan last Saturday.

Reflecting on it, he said: "It's obviously a nice achievement - it was my 59th cap, so I wouldn't say I am a prolific try-scorer - but it still feels like a bit of a loss.

"All credit to the Japanese team, they showed how elusive they can be and they certainly punished us when they had the ball in hand."