I just tried the following:

#!/usr/local/perl

$test = "         foo          bar";
($var1, $var2) = ($1, $2) if ($test =~ /\s+(\S+)\s+(\S+)/);
print "Var1: $var1\nVar2: $var2";
exit;
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...and it grabbed the text out and printed fine, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say none of the suggestions are working for you, can you be more specific?