By John Toshack Former Wales and Liverpool striker

Match report: Wales 2-3 Poland Mark Hughes reaction

A cruel, cruel result for Wales - and certainly not the outcome the performance for the majority of the game deserved.

The first half was as good as I've seen Wales play at home since the Italy game two years ago, and so a 3-2 defeat was certainly not what I expected at the end of it.

We deserved to be in front at half-time. We had played a good attacking passing game, but snatched at a few chances to score.

Rob Earnshaw hadn't played much of a part in any build-up play, but he was there at the right time as he often is to take advantage of a defensive mistake.

Once we had the goal, it was perfectly set up for us to keep our shape, invite the Poles to come onto us and hit them on the break using Bellamy and Earnshaw's pace.

But we lost our discipline and started running all around the place when there was absolutely no need.

Our two centre backs, who will probably take some criticism for what happened, had no protection in front of them - particularly when Gary Speed went off.

It was 1-1 at that stage, but the Poles then come through the midfield far too easily.

The Poles hit us with three absolutely cracking goals

In the first half Speed and Robbie Savage did an excellent job in holding their positions, shielded the centre-backs well, pushed the ball around.

They left the attacking to Jason Koumas, Simon Davies, Rob Earnshaw and Craig Bellamy.

It's very important for any manager to have an extension of his thinking on the field, and it's clear Speed has got a good relationship with Hughes.

For an hour, he was the only one that seemed able to organise the team and once he went off it all fell apart.

The gap between the midfield and the two centre backs was incredible. The Polish players had all the time in the world to run at the centre backs.

International football is for intelligent and disciplined people. The way we lost it in the last 15 minutes must be soul-destroying for Hughes.

But, to be fair to the Poles, they hit us with three absolutely cracking goals.

It's the third successive time Poland have scored three goals away from home so you can't say it's a coincidence.

They gave us a lesson in finishing, there's no doubt about that.