SCRUM-HALF Gareth Cooper was left cursing the Richie McCaw factor on Saturday night.

The All Blacks skipper was, as usual, a menace at the breakdown and the Welsh pack failed to knock him off his stride in the narrow loss.

Cooper faced a constant struggle to provide quick ball for his backs and with McCaw leading the way for a rush of black shirts to come piling towards the number nine.

“I think they competed hard at the breakdown and we didn’t get enough quick ball,” he admitted. “It’s difficult with Richie McCaw there – any sniff of a turnover and he is in there backed up by the rest of them.

“They work so well as a team, it’s not just him in there, he gets in there and they all pile in there and it is difficult for the referee to penalise anyone when they come in as a team.”

Cooper struggled with a hamstring niggle all week, but the former Newport Gwent Dragon was happy with how he performed before being replaced by Martin Roberts on 54 minutes.

“I was happy with my own performance,” he said. “I was getting tired in the second half and I think that was why I was replaced, but I made a couple of breaks and kicked well. There were a couple of loose passes but all in all I was happy.

“But it is just frustrating that we can’t quite get that result and I don’t think we are a million miles away.

“I think the gap is definitely getting smaller – we were in the game right until the end and on another day Alun Wyn might have gone under the posts and we could have levelled it.

“It’s difficult for a big second row on an interception like that, I think the winger got him. He did well to take that ball and it was up to the rest of us to get with him.

“He did the right thing holding it up and looking for support but unfortunately it just wasn’t close enough to him.”

Hooker Matthew Rees was left cursing the sluggish start to the second half that failed to prevent the fired-up All Blacks stretching away.

A 6-6 score at the break quickly became 19-6, a similar situation to 2008 when the Kiwis went from 9-6 down to win 29-9.

“The boys are down and disappointed that we didn’t come away with the result,” said the Scarlets number two. “A couple of areas went wrong at the start of the second half and they put us under the cosh.

“At half-time we said we had been there before – we put them under a lot of pressure in the first half – but at the start of the second half it wasn’t there for some reason and that cost us.”