USA 2 WALES 0

Mark Hughes claims Matthew Jones' dismissal was the turning point as an under-strength Wales team lost their record-breaking unbeaten run in the United States this morning.

Jones had a nightmare in the 2-0 defeat by the World Cup quarter-finalists, ranked tenth in the world, in San Jose.

Jones, who has been told he can leave Premiership new boys Leicester City, committed two unnecessary offences which eventually saw him red-carded and cost Wales any chance of adding to their 10-match unbeaten run.

"After Matt was sent off, there wasn't much chance of us getting back into the game," admitted Wales boss Hughes, who was missing 19 of his top stars.

Jones' contribution to the first Wales defeat in 20 months was massive.

A pointless first-half challenge on Greg Vanney earned him a first yellow card and then a silly jump into the back of Jovan Kirovski resulted in the penalty which saw Landon Donovan grab the lead from the spot.

At the beginning of the second-half, Jones stuck out a hand for a blatant offence and got his second yellow and became only the sixth Welsh dismissal in their history.

Hughes had sympathy with his player, adding: "I thought it was an unfortunate one but the ball did hit his hand. The referee was quick to get his card out, though."

He added: "I'm obviously disappointed with the defeat. We hoped we could get a positive result but I was pleased with the way the lads stuck at it. We can take a lot of positives from the game.

"Obviously we didn't get the result we wanted - but my players showed a lot of character and belief.

"It could have been really easy for them to have excuses and not perform but they were prepared to put their reputations on the line."

Wales' problems were compounded when Darren Ward allowed a weak Eddie Lewis shot to slip under his arms for a very soft second goal just before the hour.

USA boss Bruce Arena realised his side had been handed gifts by a depleted Wales side, saying: "They were missing a lot of their top players and that rather played into our hands a bit.

"It might have been much more difficult if we'd had to handle Ryan Giggs and John Hartson and the rest of their full strength team!"

* Picture: Wales defender David Vaughan holds off USA's Earnie Stewart during this morning's 2-0 defeat.