WALES' performances against New Zealand and England were the best in the World Cup, and Wales will continue in the same vein in the Six Nations Championship, starting against Scotland at a sold out Millennium Stadium a week on Saturday.

Those are not the views of Wales coach Steve Hansen, but newly installed Scottish counterpart Matt Williams.

The Australian who has taken over from Ian McGeechan is well known to Newport fans after the three epic performances against Leinster two years ago when he was in charge there.

Already he is revolutionising Scottish rugby with his demands that players out of contract south of the border or elsewhere play their rugby in Scotland.

Williams was in Australia for the World Cup before he took charge and he makes no secret of his admiration for Wales' displays, particularly in the two memorable games against the All Blacks and England.

"Wales' performances were magnificent against the All Blacks and England, the best two in the whole World Cup. They were absolutely outstanding," Williams told me at yesterday's Six Nations launch in London.

"They were both fabulous games and Wales showed brilliant skills, as well as the thorough planning by Steve Hansen.

"It just shows that if you get the resources you will get the results. If our game next week against Wales is harder than playing against the All Blacks, I don't want to know.

"Wales will have a very good Six Nations Championship, I've no doubt about that and it will be a particularly difficult game for us."

Williams takes over the Scottish hot seat at a difficult time, and he fully expects to be in the goldfish bowl from now on.

"You learn to live with the weight of expectancy, you just get out there and you get on with it," he said.

"The Six Nations is a historic tournament, the most important in the world behind the World Cup, and Scotland looking for a win it's almost impossible to win the Grand Slam.

"But I have seen very positive signs in Scotland and I'm very cheered by the support we appear to have.

"We are ninth in the world and that isn't satisfactory to any of us. But we are putting structures in place, we are going to make it hard for everyone and we are going to give it everything.

"We have got to ask the nation to support us as well as the past players and play for 80 minutes with passion and pride, so that the nation can be proud of us."

Scotland captain hooker Gordon Bulloch will play tthe underdogs role for all he can.

"No-one expects us to do anything in the Six Nations with all the changes that have taken place," he said.

"We know it's going to be hard and the changes that are being made will take time to bed in, but we will improve our performances. No-one knows what we're going to do.

"Wales will go in as favourites against us, but we are hoping to use tthe underdogs tag to our advantage against them.

"It's hugely important to win the first game, if you don't you are labelled as wooden spoonists which is difficult to contend with especially if you have England the next game. "If we can start with a win it will be a huge bonus."