WARREN Gatland bemoaned Wales’ second half collapse after a deflating 21-16 loss to England in the Six Nations opener at the Millennium Stadium.

The hosts were comprehensively outplayed by Stuart Lancaster’s men, who rallied from going 10-0 down in the opening stages and took the spoils thanks to 13 unanswered points after the break.

“I thought we were okay and reasonably comfortable at half-time, but we started the second half poorly,” admitted Gatland.

“We put in a loose kick and England kept the ball for four minutes and ended up scoring, we then had with a yellow card and we put ourselves under a lot of pressure.”

England headed to Cardiff without the likes of Courtney Lawes, Ben Morgan, Brad Barritt and Tom Wood yet Gatland denied his team were toppled by a second-string.

“England have a huge amount of injuries but they also have a huge amount of depth as well,” said Gatland.

“You would argue the 10/12/13 combination went pretty well. I thought James Haskell was absolutely outstanding.

“I could not see where you would argue England were massively depleted. They have strength in depth and the players who came in did a massive job for them.”

And the New Zealander said the defeat would count for nothing when the sides meet at Twickenham at the World Cup in September.

“It is seven months before we play England (in the World Cup), at this level you have to make sure you are accurate, unfortunately we weren’t as accurate as we should have been and I thought England played well in that second half."

Captain Sam Warburton admitted that England were worthy winners, saying: “We found it very difficult to get any momentum, I thought they did very well at the breakdown with choke tackles, they got turnovers from that and scrum penalties that gave them field position.

“We needed to try and get a foothold in the game and we didn’t. England deserve a lot of credit for the way they play and they deserved the win.”