Shane Williams: Yes, pain will be unbearable but Wales can hold their heads high

Shut the door, close the curtains and play with the kids. That’s my only advice to those brave Wales players who gave everything, but ultimately came up short.
I know how it feels to be knocked out of the World Cup in the pool stage, quarter-final and a semi-final – and the simple truth is there’s no good time to go home.
There’s no tablet you can take to take away the pain and disappointment so the likes of Sam Warburton, Alun Wyn Jones, Jamie Roberts and the rest must just ride it out for the coming days.
It may not count for much right now, but they can all be immensely proud of their achievements in the tournament. To have come through that pool and with all those injuries was remarkable. It’s just a shame that they were not rewarded with something more than a quarter-final because they deserved it.
It will certainly take them a few days to physically recover from that match because it was a brutal Test. But one thing this Wales team never does is buckle in the face of a challenge. It went to the wire, could easily have gone either way but, in the end, it was a moment of brilliance from Duane Vermeulen that decided it.
There may be some finger-pointing at Alex Cuthbert and, possibly, he should have stayed out wide to mark the pass.
He obviously wasn’t 100 per cent sure Lloyd Williams was going to stop the big man and came in to help, only to leave the space out wide. In hindsight he should have stayed out but that’s easy to say now.
He will be pretty hard on himself but I feel sorry for Alex. He has taken a lot of stick and right now he must feel like everything he does goes wrong.
But we need to put our arm around his shoulder rather than criticise him anymore because we know what a threat he can be. It would be wrong to single any player out because that was a huge team effort.
What were far more costly were the penalties Wales conceded in the first half. We gave away too many soft penalties and that gifted the Springboks three easy points each time.
We did exactly the same against Australia and it was as if we hadn’t learned our lesson. That was so frustrating.
We were impatient at the breakdown and suffered at the hands of Wayne Barnes, and we were impatient when we got the ball back.
Our body positioning was also not great in the tackle area. Whenever the likes of Schalk Burger or Vermeulen carried, they had man on their shoulder to immediately secure the ball.
Too often Wales carried on their own and when it came to clearing out, they went too high. These are all the lessons we have to learn if we are ever to get over this Southern Hemisphere hoodoo.
As for South Africa, well there is certainly nothing fancy about them. You know exactly what you are going to get from the Boks – but that doesn’t make stopping them any easier.
Wales’ blitz defence was so effective that all the likes of Damian de Allande and Jesse Kriel saw in their peripheral vision was Tyler Morgan or the wings engulfing their options.
That forced the Springboks to go more and more narrow and that Bryan Habana and JP Pieterson were so quiet is a credit to Wales.
But they have so many big ball-carriers up front that they always got over the gainline. However, they will need something more than that to win the semi-final. As for Wales, all I can say is that it will hurt like hell for the next few days and I feel for them.
But they should hold their heads up high for the way they have come through so much adversity in this World Cup.
Final word on Dan Biggar… Thank goodness players do not get to decide whether they stay on the pitch any more.
H was clearly not a happy man at being ordered off the pitch but sometimes players simply have to listen to the medics. It’s tough when you’re in the heat of battle.
He knew if he went off for a Head Injury Assessment his World Cup quarter-final was over. But the medics thought he looked wobbly and we have to trust their judgement in the name of player welfare. Even if that was tough for Dan to take.