The Kiwi will be heading home to New Zealand after his third World Cup in charge and wants to improve on his fourth place finish in 2011 and quarter-final in 2015.
“The last thing I want to do is have a poor Six Nations and a poor World Cup, because the amount of work we’ve put in over the past 12 years has been huge,” said Gatland.
“I’ve loved my time here in Wales, but it’s time to move on. That’s why I’ll be really focused on doing the best job that I can, although I’m bricking myself about next year because I want it to be a good year.
“The next 12 months are pretty important — not so much November and the warm-up games, but the Six Nations, where it counts, and definitely the World Cup Those are the competitions where we are judged and I hope I can leave these shores with my head held high.”
Gatland believes he has the players to pull off what would be one of the biggest coups in world sport by winning the World Cup. And he doesn’t feel it is a racing certainty that Steve Hansen’s All Blacks will make it three in a row in Japan.
“Ireland and ourselves and up there, there has been some resurgence in Scotland and England, with the amount of depth they’ve got, are capable of winning the World Cup if they get it right,” added Gatland.
“It is pretty exciting and while the All Blacks are still another level ahead, there isn’t much between the other teams. Although as a Kiwi I don’t want them to lose, I think the All Blacks losing was good for rugby.
“It was also good for rugby in terms of Argentina beating Australia as well. You don’t want one team continually dominating the game.”
Unlike at the last two World Cups, Gatland firmly believes he has much greater strength in depth to call on as his Welsh side prepare to face Australia, Georgia, Fiji and Uruguay.
“We are a lot further forward in terms of strength in depth, but we’ll still be working on that in next 12 months. The beauty of 2015 was that we were able to get through to the knock-out stages with players in different positions,” said Gatland.
The Welsh coaching team will have 13 games to get ready for the World Cup campaign and the countdown will start in the UnderArmour Series in November with matches against Scotland, Australia, South Africa and Tonga.
“It’s unusual to be playing Scotland, but the Match is being dedicated to Doddie Weir and that’s a great gesture. Having the four games gives us the chance to give players an opportunity to improve our depth.
“Our focus in November will be very much that it is the start of a 12-month countdown – the start of a conditioning phase and skill work. We will be looking on areas that will ensure we get to Japan in 12 months time in the best possible shape, not just physically but from a skills point of view.
“We have two big games in November against Australia and South Africa. The Tonga game gives us a chance to rotate a lot of players and maybe the Scotland game allows us to do that as well, because we won’t have the English-based players available for that one.”
