WALES boss Warren Gatland knows there is plenty of room for improvement despite an excellent World Cup warm-up win against Ireland in Dublin.

Gatland’s men enjoyed a 16-10 success against the Six Nations champions at the Aviva Stadium, ending the Irish’s nine-Test home winning streak.

The Wales head coach said it was a crucial win on the road leading up to their World Cup showdowns with England and Australia at Twickenham.

And Gatland, who names his 31-strong squad at midday tomorrow, expects to make plenty of progress in the coming weeks as they shift the focus from conditioning to rugby.

“It was a good performance. There was a little bit of rustiness as well, a bit of heart-stopping stuff,” said the New Zealander.

“I joked in the box, with three minutes to go, and said ‘The next three minutes are going to be hell, aren’t they?’ and they were.

“It’s a performance we know we are capable of with that sort of experience and a strong side out.

“We knew the whole focus of this campaign so far in preparation was to win a big game away from home, because we’ve got to go to Twickenham for a couple of big games.

“So to beat the number two team in the world was good. I know it was close at the end. Ireland could have won it and that would have been heartbreaking for us, but potentially it could have been a lot more comfortable for us as well.”

“We haven’t had a lot of rugby together and we did a lot of hard work last week,” he continued.

“We had one training session on Thursday and a captain’s run on Friday, so to give that kind of performance without having a full Test week’s performance was what I was most pleased about.

“We have kept saying that at some stage we will kick more into the rugby, which we will do.”