The following code does what I want:

use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;

my @list = (["qwe", 1], ["qwer", 2], ["tyui", 3], ["asdf", 4], ["ghjk"
+, 5], ["zxcv", 6] );
my @list2 = map $$_[0], @list;
for my $item ("qwe", "qwer", "tyu", "yui", "tyui") {
    print grep(/^$item$/, @list2) . " " . $item . "\n";
}
[download]

I would prefer to avoid creating @list2 every time (or an anonymous array/list via some other use of map), but I'm stuck. My instincts tell me that it should be possible, but trial results in nothing but error and Google gives me nothing I find helpful. Is there a way of using grep directly on an AoA?

Regards,

John Davies

Update: Thank you both for working solutions that through their slight differences have taught me more than I was expecting.