WARREN Gatland says Wales will "throw something different" at the Springboks tomorrow after learning from the experiences of four years ago.

Wales head into the quarter-final clash against South Africa at Twickenham as underdogs, just like they were at New Zealand 2011.

On that occasion Ireland's 'golden generation' were tipped for victory in Wellington only for Wales to triumph 22-10.

"What you learn is that you have to be prepared to throw something different in," said Gatland, whose team beat the Boks 16-6 in Cardiff last autumn.

"We did that against Ireland in 2011 and changed the way we wanted to play.

"You have to be prepared to do something different. One or two subtle changes can catch a team and we have done a couple of things this week that hopefully South Africa haven't seen."

"We feel at the moment we're in a good place mentally and have played some pretty good rugby," he continued. "Competing with some of the best teams you need a couple of decisions to go your way."

Gatland revealed that he read the riot act at his players after they failed to score against Australia's 13 men at Twickenham last week.

Wales had a two-man advantage for eight minutes in the Pool A decider following yellow cards for Will Genia and Dean Mumm yet they failed to score a point.

"We've been pretty critical of the players," said Gatland. "Toby Faletau lost ball in contact (over the line). If he'd scored, that's brilliant, but Dan Biggar is screaming for it with a three on one overlap.

"George North comes short after Jamie Roberts has gone short and he should have kept his width. The same situation 12 months ago, Scott Williams keeps his width and goes in and scores.

"So we have been really hard on the players in terms of making the right decisions at this level.

"Part of our whole preparation, with the physical work we have done, has been making decisions under pressure and making the right decisions under fatigue.

"Unfortunately, we didn't do that on Saturday. I was hard on the players. The easiest and the softest decision is to tuck the ball under your arms because no-one criticises that.

"The hard thing is to make the skilled decision where you've got to take an out ball or potentially make a pass. That's the tough decision to make and you could make a mistake."

Wales: G Anscombe, A Cuthbert, T Morgan, J Roberts, G North, D Biggar, G Davies, G Jenkins, S Baldwin, S Lee, L Charteris, A W Jones, D Lydiate, S Warburton (captain), T Faletau. Replacements: K Owens, P James, T Francis, B Davies, J Tipuric, L Williams, R Priestland, J Hook.