ONE-OFF Wales rugby coach Mike Ruddock says the pressure is on Wales' senior players to clinch their World Cup places.

His comments come in the wake of the Welsh side he was temporarily in charge of ending their 11 match losing run with a 54-8 win over Romania at the Racecourse, Wrexham, last night.

Ruddock (pictured) claims a number of his winning team have boosted their chances of making the World Cup party and says the pressure is now on Saturday's more experienced side to perform against Scotland if they are to clinch a trip to Australia in October.

"I think there were quite a few who improved their World Cup chances last night," said Ruddock.

"There were bits of magic from Shane Williams and Gavin Henson, Nathan Brew looked good, Jonathan Thomas was excellent and Paul James stood out with his scrummaging and donkey work.

"Everyone contributed - nobody let the side down.

"The good thing about last night is that it puts pressure on Saturday's team.

"The individuals who are facing Scotland will have watched and will realise they need to pick up their game big time if they are to go to the World Cup."

But Ruddock refused to compare his success with national coach Steve Hansen's failure.

"I sat with Steve in the stand and spelt out what we were trying to do, but I'm not going to say my structure is better than anyone else's," he said.

"When you lose key players likeRob Howley, the Quinnells, Neil Jenkins and Scott Gibbs its always going to take time to build a crop of new players and in fairness to Steve he hasn't been afraid to give a lot of good youngsters their heads."

But Ruddock added: "The real buzz is about winning and we got a result.

"The couple of days we had together was built around getting the passion back into our game.

"We gave the boys a very simple plan based on Andy Marinos (pictured) crossing the gain-line in midfield and people like Alix Popham and Mefin Davies coming off him and all the time just putting them on the back foot and if we slowed down, kicking into the corners.

"The only time we lost our cohesion is when we moved away from that tried to do fancy stuff in the wrong areas."

Asked if he had felt under any pressure, Ruddock commented: "I believed it was going to be easy being in charge of a experimental team for one game, but after Saturday's result the context changed.

"I suddenly felt all the pressure that the real national coaches feel. It was a must win game.

"But I was in an easy position. I could talk-up winning. I didn't have to worry about picking up the pieces if we lost.

"I just had to get into their heads we needed a win, if only by just one point, and I was surprised we scored 50 because, make no mistake, Romania are a much improved side."

National coach Hansen commented: "The team who played Romania came with the attitude that they wanted to put pressure on the other players and hopefully make the World Cup.

"There were also some youngsters we wanted to introduce to international rugby who may not go on the trip but will hopefully go back to their regions as true professionals and train hard and hopefully want another taste of it.

"My mind isn't set in concrete on the World Cup squad and it would be fair to say most of the guys who played last night didn't do themselves any harm for the World Cup and for future Wales teams."

Asked if the pressure had now eased after the England result, he said: "Its nice to get the monkey off the back.

"But the reality is, as much as we can be proud of how well our blokes played, it wasn't a real test against Romania.

"We suffer when we lose. I hate losing. I don't think anyone involved with the team hasn't suffered in some way.

"The flak goes with the job. I have a job to do and being affected about what people say about me is not going to help me do that job.

"Its about self-belief and I haven't lost it and I don't think it ever will be lost despite the media.

"The England game was a shocker, but we have to stand tall in times of adversity and move on.

"It's a matter of sticking together and the morale of the whole group is still extremely high."

Last night's Wales skipper Mefin Davies commented: "Our objective was to win whether by three or 50 points and I am over the moon with the result given the amount of time we had together.

"The great plus was that everytime we scored we didn't back off but built our game up.

"The whole of Wales have been hit and the young players who came in put their hands up and even if they don't make the World Cup tour they put their hands up high for future internationals."

Romania's French coach Bernard Charreyre insisted: "We knew Wales would want to make up for the results against England and Ireland, but they surprised us.

"Wales were lucky to be able to change their team. We haven't enough players to be able to rotate our team and after playing France five days ago we did not have enough time to recharge the batteries.

"That's why we are in the Third Division. We can't produce match after match at a high standard.

"You didn't see the true Romania on this occasion."