Although the visitors were hampered by the early sending-off of Jamie Heaslip and the sin-binning of Ronan O’Gara, it took them a while to adjust to the speed of the game played under the new law interpretations as New Zealand recycled the ball quickly and constantly threatened the Irish line.

Ireland staged something of a second-half fight back, albeit when All Blacks coach Graham Henry had emptied his bench and had six new caps on the field, but it was far too little too late.

“Wales have to stop the speed of ruck ball. That was the one thing we struggled with,” the Irish skipper said.

“They are able to generate incredibly quick ruck ball and we couldn’t set our defensive line.

“Their ability to offload and support play was a really, really top class. For the first Test of the season they did pretty well. They look very potent at the moment.”

O’Driscoll, though, did not discount Wales’ chances in Dunedin and Hamilton all together, particularly given the recent performance against South Africa.

“The Welsh boys are the sort of side that are very capable of upsetting any side,” he added. “If they start well and get into a good mindset I’m sure they could do extremely well.”

Wales captain Ryan Jones and his team-mates arrived in Wellington on Sunday afternoon to continue their preparations for the Carisbrook showdown.

They Welsh have opted to get an early look at the facilities they will be using during next year’s Rugby World Cup and do not head to Dunedin until Thursday when they will name their team to take on Henry’s outfit.