After a tough autumn campaign and Six Nations, Wales head coach Warren Gatland may be forgiven for wishing for a leisurely summer, but not so.

He can’t wait to get stuck into preparations for Wales’ challenging trio of June matches against world champions South Africa at the Millennium Stadium, followed by a two Test tour of New Zealand.

Speaking exclusively to the WRU website he said: “It’s one of the things what I said when I came into the job. While we prepare short term for each individual match, we are always looking long term towards the world cup and we need to play the best teams as often and as regularly as we can to pit ourselves against them and that’s what June 5th is all about. The great thing about it is the number of tickets that have been sold already. Getting a great crowd there supporting us would be a massive boost to players ahead of an incredibly hard two Tests in New Zealand.

“But, however hard those Tests may be, that’s exactly what we want to be doing this summer. We don’t want to be playing teams who we can beat comfortably, we want to test ourselves against the best in the world and that often means the three southern hemisphere sides.

“With the intensity those teams bring to rugby, they provide the toughest opposition and every time we play those sides, the players and coaches learn so much and improve with the challenge of it.

“It’s great for us to be able to play South Africa at home. If we can get a great crowd and win that game, it’ll give us great confidence as we head to New Zealand.”

Gatland firmly believes the world champions will not want to throw away the Test match with an under par performance.

“It doesn’t matter what South African team you play, you’re always going to get quality players. They may pick some Europe-based players but some of those won the Rugby World Cup with the Springboks so they will be good players.

“The Bulls and the Stormers are both doing well in the Super 14 at the moment so once again South Africa have two of their teams in the top four so South Africa are sure to be tough opposition, whoever they put out on the day and the last thing they’ll want to do is come to Wales and lose by putting out a weakened side. I think everyone has to expect we will be facing an incredibly strong team on June 5th.”

And with one year to go before RWC 2011, the tour to New Zealand provides a great chance to get a sneak preview of the challenges that will pose, both on and off the field.

“After a few days in Auckland, we will stay and train at our Wellington world cup hotel and training venue for four days before heading to Dunedin for the first Test on June 19th. That Test will be the last to be played at Carisbrook so that’s going to be a pretty special moment.

“Our second Test on June 26th is in Hamilton, my home city. We’re going to be based there for some of the Rugby World Cup too so it would be great to build some support for Wales there.

“It will be very much a case of players gaining experience of playing in New Zealand and the toughness of the competition we will face there but also about familiarising ourselves with the place for the following year.”

Gatland has revealed he does not see this tour as experimental and will take the strongest available squad down under this summer.

“It’s important the players gain from this type of experience and we will certainly be looking to take the strongest squad available, barring any injuries picked up in the last few weeks of the season – in that case it may be better to leave one or two behind to recover and have a good pre-season but other than that it will be our strongest possible squad.

“From a player’s point of view, I know I would be incredibly excited to have the chance of testing myself against the world champions and twice against New Zealand. It will put players in contention for the following year because after the summer tour, there will be a real countdown towards the Rugby World Cup with a tough autumn series and the Six Nations.”

Gatland believes the experience will give him and his coaching team a real feel for where they stand 12 months before the RWC.

“We always want to test ourselves against the best and at times we have put those teams under pressure but we feel we’re stil not quite there in terms of accuracy and intensity when we’re competing against the best teams in the world. That’s why we want to keep playing them as often as we can.

“Often it takes a bit of time and one of the things you can’t do as a coach is coach experience and that’s why we wnat to give these players as much experience as we can by playing the best teams in the world.”

Tickets for Wales v South Africa on Saturday 5 June (2.30pm) are on sale from the WRU’s Cardiff Arms Cafe / Store, 8 Westgate Street, Cardiff; via Ticketmaster (tel 08442 777888, www.ticketmaster.co.uk, Ticketline (02920 230130, www.ticketlineuk.com ) and via www.wru.co.uk/tickets  

Tickets are available from £25 with family packages (2 adults, 2 children) on sale for £80.

Hospitality is available from £119 per person plus VAT, more information at www.millenniumstadium.com