I think I understand what is going on in the first of your updated solutions but if I change it to read

my @nums = ($x =~ /\s(\S+)/)[1] =~ /(\d+)/g;
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expecting output of

3
33
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it doesn't work unless I also make the first match global like this

my @nums = ($x =~ /\s(\S+)/g)[1] =~ /(\d+)/g;
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I think this is because the round brackets around the match put the match into list context and the [0] subscript grabs the first elements of the match; however, since the match is non-global there will only ever be one element in the list and trying to get more will not work. If we want a second or subsequent element we must make the match global to capture more than one element.

Have I understood this correctly or am I completely missing the point?

Cheers,

JohnGG