A late Ryan Elias try was enough to seal Wales their third straight win over the Springboks despite resting a host of first choice players. And Gatland believes the likes of Tomos Williams, Owen Watkin, Ryan Elias and Elliott Dee can put pressure on some of the more established stars.
“We got a huge amount out of this game,” he said.
“The players said how hot and humid it was. We know that Japan will be similar.
“We were pretty straight up with these guys and they’re all well aware of what we’ve been trying to do in the last 18 months and that’s to really develop some depth and some competition in certain positions
“There are 10 or 11 players who aren’t here who, if their form is good enough, they’re probably going to make the World Cup squad. But the biggest thing that I want is for guys to be under pressure.
“Hopefully there’s a few of those 10 or 11 players sitting at home at the moment watching Wales but also realising that there are a couple of players that have played exceptionally well and have won.”
Gatland was quick to praise the performance of captain Ellis Jenkins and new cap Tomos Williams who scored a try on debut. And after getting the summer tour off to a winning start Gatland is excited by the challenge of facing Argentina.
“I thought Ellis was outstanding,” said Gatland.
“He got a couple of crucial turnovers.
“Tomos Williams was great as well, there are a couple of little things for him to work on but for his first cap – he’s scored, he’s charged one down at the end, he’s hunted. We were pleased.
“I thought our set piece was pretty good, particularly in the first 60 minutes. We put ourselves under a little bit of pressure but you expect that.
“There will be a lot of positives for us to take from this and we’ve got a couple of tough games against Argentina. Most of them play for the Jaguares team so they’ll be fairly familiar with everything and they’ve done well in Super Rugby so it’s something for us to look forward to.”
