Scotland fans will hate Gatland's latest comments in wake of drubbing

Warren Gatland said he expected Wales to inflict an emphatic defeat on Scotland after watching his side start their Six Nations campaign with a 34-7 victory in Cardiff.

Scotland travelled to the Principality Stadium with high hopes of beating an injury-hit Wales side, but they were on the end of an opening-day drubbing.

Leigh Halfpenny claimed a 24-point haul – including a brace of tries – as Wales started their campaign in style to leave Scotland shell-shocked.

And the Wales performance came as no surprise to head coach Gatland.

“It was an afternoon that I was expecting, the guys have been outstanding in their preparation and we did go into the game expecting to win and win reasonably comfortably.” said the New Zealander.

“I said to the chief executive [of the WRU, Martyn Phillips] that the guys will win by 20, he looked a little bit shocked but that was how well we trained.

“I thought that we defended superbly against a lot of Scottish attacking threats. We coped with that, there was a soft try at the end but our defence was outstanding.

“Getting the bonus point was pretty pleasing as well and we probably left two or three tries out on the pitch as well.

“There is some improvement to do and hopefully as a squad we’ll get better for next week.”

Wales travel to Twickenham to face defending champions England next Saturday.