A couple fellow monks have answered your question...

... I just can't resist the urge to give you an orthogonal answer and point you towards HTML::TreeBuilder. Originally by Gisle Aas and the further improved by Sean Burke, HTML::TreeBuilder let's you answer queries like "give me the first table in the document" or "I want the second paragraph within the second table" with awesome ease.

If I unterstand your underlying problem right, HTML::TreeBuilder might be just what you are looking for.