Wales failed to defeat Australia in their thrilling Rugby World Cup encounter at Twickenham on Saturday but their use of the "choke" tackle and a high kicking game have given sides an indication of where they must target the Wallabies.

Warren Gatland's side were left to lament wasted attacking opportunities after they failed to capitalise on a seven-minute two-man advantage following the sin-binning of Will Genia and Dean Mumm. The Wales coach was quick to praise Australia's "courageous" defence post game but the look of frustration was obvious, particularly after his side's tactics had worked so well.

Gareth Davies of Wales clashes with Scott Sio of Australia © Getty Images

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"It was a strategy for today, yeah," Gatland said post-match. "We worked during the week about not just that, holding them up, but a couple of other areas in terms of what was effective in slowing the Australian ball down because we know what a potent threat they are as an attacking side.

"So if we can slow that ball down, using different techniques to do that, it just helps our realignment defensively and negates some of their attacking strength. And I thought we did that fantastically well today."

In a throwback to Australia's pool loss to Ireland at the 2011 showpiece, Wales were able to hold several Wallabies players up and secure maul turnovers while the Australians were unable to diffuse the persistent aerial raid - Israel Folau eventually giving up contesting.

Wales' George North and Justin Tipuric tackle Tevita Kuridrani © Getty Images

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Speaking at the Wallabies' recovery session on Sunday morning, winger Adam Ashley-Cooper said that Wales' tactics had opened some cracks in Australia's set-up.

"Yeah, look they did a good job there, holding us up, and it's probably an area we'll need to address going into our next Test against Scotland," the 111-Test veteran said.

"You can't afford to be held up in these Test matches; you've got to be able to continue that momentum, that ascendancy in your ball-carry. So that's an area that we'll need to focus on in our training week leading into Scotland.

"And obviously the high balls, yeah that was always an area that they were going to come at us ... similar to England the week before. So we need to tidy up that backfield and that positioning and obviously the execution of the high ball catch. So we'll look at that as well."

The Wallabies had exhausted all their replacements when Folau went down with the ankle injury he sustained against England the week before. The full-back admitted to not being 100 % ahead of kick-off, but Wallabies assistant Nathan Grey said that at Sunday's recovery session that Folau had "pulled up better than last week".

Scotland - Australia's quarterfinal opponents - will clearly have taken some pointers from Wales, and Greg Laidlaw, Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg will surely look to target Folau should he not be 100% right.

Meanwhile, Wallabies back-rower Sean McMahon - who was curiously replaced just as David Pocock suffered a calf injury - said he'd been guilty of poor body-height against Wales.

"Yeah, definitely, there were a couple of occasions there where personally, myself, you know my body height didn't dip quick enough and they got under me and, you know, it happened to a couple of players," he said. "So as I said, it's another improvement we'll work on so it's not something that will bite us in the back."