Wales return from South Africa on Monday having narrowly lost both Test matches, but showing a marked improvement in attitude and performance from a disappointing Six Nations campaign.

John puts that down to the amount of time the squad has been with Hansen and his back-up team, and believes the WRU must come up with a way to make it happen in the future.

"The players have been with the whole coaching staff for over a month or so, and you can see they are improving," said John, who has watched both Test matches.

"When you are doing well everything looks rosy, but we have to do things to make sure that continues.

"We need a structured season to tell us when we are playing and in what competition. At the moment we don't know when the season starts or whether it's Celtic League, Welsh League or what.

"As a group of Premier Division coaches we would love to play every Saturday so that we would have the whole week to help and improve the players.

"Steve (Hansen) could come down and join the clubs to help make the players better.

Great chance

"The time is right to do it. I think the players want it and, as club coaches, we can keep improving the players.

"But we need some help from the Union in trying to organise that."

John, who was part of the Welsh coaching set-up in last summer's tour to Japan, added that he thought it was the ideal time to instigate changes.

He said: "We have to ask the people who govern our game not to spoil what we have got.

"We have the opportunity to get something out of these young players, but if the game isn't governed properly we will be sitting down in 12 months time saying 'if only'.

"As Premier Division coaches we want Steve to have a strong national side. And, if we get that, everyone should be happy.

"The smaller clubs will benefit because youngsters will want to play rugby. At the moment they're probably playing football, but we have the chance to change that."