Wales coach Warren Gatland has admitted he wanted Martyn Williams to be part of the squad for the June Tests.

The New Zealander revealed that veteran open-side Williams, 34, who has 95 Wales caps, opted out of playing South Africa and then touring New Zealand.

"I said to him right from day one that we wanted to take our strongest team out," Gatland said.

"We wanted to take Martyn on tour and he felt that the best thing for him was to have a rest and a good pre-season."

Gatland added that he "had to respect that [decision]" as next year is probably Williams' last season of rugby and the Cardiff Blues back-row is likely to retire after the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.

Williams' understudy at for both Wales and the Blues, Sam Warburton, looked a likely successor in the number seven shirt in last Saturday's 31-34 loss to the Springboks.

New Zealand are not anywhere near as big as the South Africans Wales coach Warren Gatland

But a broken jaw sustained in that match at the Millennium Stadium has ruled the 21-year-old out of the two-Test tour of New Zealand.

That leaves Wales with just Gavin Thomas as a specialist open-side in the squad, although Gatland and his staff have said they have sufficient back-row cover - however it is clear the Wales coach would have liked to have Williams as one of those options.

Wales were turned over at the contact area too often against the world champion Springboks and Gatland said his players must improve that aspect of play.

"There were lots of positives in terms of some of the rugby we played, the negatives were a little bit of our game management and some critical turnovers at key times," Gatland added.

"There are a few things we need to improve on and we've found this on a number of occasions playing the southern hemisphere teams is just that contact area.

"Players just do not experience that in the northern hemisphere, the ferocity of the contact and that's what they [South Africa] brought on Saturday.

"And that's what you get when you play New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, and that's an area we need to improve on definitely."

Wales flew out on Wednesday and will play the All Blacks in Dunedin on 19 June before facing them again the following Saturday in Hamilton.

They have not beaten the All Blacks since 1953 when they won 13-8 at Cardiff Arms Park, and have never beaten them away from Wales.

"They're a team with some new caps at the moment - the team that they've picked for Ireland [this weekend] - a number of injuries as well," Gatland said.

"We've got to go there knowing that physically they're going to be tough but they're not anywhere near as big as the South Africans are in terms of size.

"Probably New Zealand rugby at the moment hasn't got quite the same depth as South Africa as well."

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