Well, for one, you should only trust $1 if your regex suceeds. Remember, the $1..$x variables are set after each successful regex with capturing parantheses. However, they are not cleared when a regex doesn't match. You could put the return statements in an if-block. Even better, check out this code. No $1 to worry about.

print BLAH::chg("word", qr/(\d)/);   # print "nope"
"2" =~ /(2)/;
print BLAH::chg("word", qr/(\d)/);   # print "nope"
print BLAH::chg("3", qr/(\d)/);   # print "yes"
                                                                      
+          
package BLAH;
sub chg {
   return $_[0] =~ $_[1] ? "yes\n" : "nope\n";
}

# Alternatively, you can do:
#
# if($_[0] =~ $_[1])
# {
#   return "yes\n";
# }
# return "nope\n";
__OUTPUT__
nope
nope
yes
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HTH