Gatland won three Six Nations Grand Slams with Wales in 2008, 2012 and 2019 in a trophy-laden 11-year spell in charge between 2008 and 2019.
His successor Wayne Pivac won the 2021 Six Nations in his second tournament in charge leaving a number of Wales players in a good position to tour South Africa with Gatland’s Lions this summer.
“It was a strange Six Nations. There is no doubt you need a little bit of luck and some momentum and Wales took the luck with the two red cards (against Ireland and Scotland),” said Gatland.
“I thought the Six Nations was brilliant from the perspective that there were five teams who, on their day, were all capable of beating each other.
“With the bounce of the ball and a couple of things, Scotland and Ireland ould have been playing for a Grand Slam and it could have been the same with France.
“It was pleasing from a Wales perspective they had improved from the autumn. I went and watched them train one day of the Irish week and they looked sharp.
“I was lucky enough to see Ireland train before they played England.
“I thought they were sharp as well. I thought it was a great Six Nations from a neutral perspective in terms of how close the games were and any team was capable of beating another.”
Wales captain Jones won his fifth Six Nations title in 2021 and is now the only person to have done so since Italy joined the tournament.
Gatland believes the 35-year-old, who is world rugby’s most capped player, is in the frame to captain the Lions against South Africa this summer.
“He’s probably one of the guys we would be looking at in terms of captain material,” Gatland said of Jones, who is a man he knows incredibly well from his time with Wales and the Lions.
“It does help coming from a team that’s done well in the Six Nations.
“But there is also a process to go through in terms of having a conversation with whoever is tour captain to say ‘You might be captain on tour, but you’ve still got to perform well and play well.’
“There are no guarantees the captain will play in the Test matches.
“But there’s no doubt he (Jones) is one of the guys we’d be potentially looking at.
“As we get a bit closer to naming the squad, I’ll start thinking more seriously about who might be captain and what sort of fit that is within the Lions team.”
