Carlos Arboleya has warned England that Uruguay will only improve following their opening-game defeat to Wales.
The Southern Hemisphere minnows faded badly after a positive start to lose 54-9 at the Millennium Stadium.
Uruguay must now prepare to take on Australia in seven days' time, before facing off against Fiji in their third Pool A fixture.
A final-game meeting with England then awaits, but Arboleya - who broke down in tears during the national anthems - is hopeful that his side can learn from this afternoon's defeat.
"We will keep working on our fitness and improve our own game," he told Sports Mole. "If we manage that we can carry the performance for not only the first 10 minutes like today, but also for much longer.
"We did quite good today, but we did concede eight tries so we must improve on that. We have to close the gap in our defence to make it a better game against Australia.
"We talked about getting our scrum together at half time - we weren't so great at that. We also had to keep on pressing, keep on talking and going forward because Wales would always make the most of any mistakes."
Asked about Wales' hopes of making it out of the tough-looking pool, Arboleya added: "They don't have to play against Uruguay to prove that they have quality.
"They have some very good players - including those on the bench and outside of the squad. But I'm not the one to weigh up their expectations."
Uruguay, ranked at number 19 in the world, are competing in just their third World Cup.
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