HE may not look it, but deep down Wales coach Warren Gatland must be a worried man.

For he is about to embark on a very tricky three-match mini series next month against world champions South Africa, even though they will be below strength, before heading for New Zealand and two more Tests without some senior players.

Key back James Hook needs a shoulder operation and is set to go under the knife as soon as the Ospreys, who pay his salary, complete their season.

On top of that, leading loose head prop Gethin Jenkins has developed an arthritic toe which has also affected his calf.

That must make him doubtful for the trio of matches, and Martyn Williams, the veteran openside creeping ever nearer to the 100 caps mark, may well be left at home in an attempt to prolong his career that bit more, taking in next year’s World Cup.

In addition Dragons blindside Dan Lydiate will be missing, along with teammate Martyn Thomas, an outside possibility for the games.

The loss of Hook will be a major blow for he was Wales’ best back during an indifferent Six Nations campaign when Wales won just two of their five games and finished fourth in the table.

Though pushed from pillar to post, from full back to inside centre to outside centre when all along he prefers outside half, he still provided the main Wales attacking threat with his incisive running and somehow managed to hide the fact that his shoulder injury prevented him from defending as he would have wished.

Jenkins has been the cornerstone of the Wales pack, performing pretty much the same role for the Lions as well, so his absence from the matches against the two southern hemisphere superpowers will be another grave blow.

And though Sam Warburton has emerged as a possible successor to Williams at openside, there is still no replacement for the evergreen Blues flanker.

All of which gives Gatland a pretty big headache as he prepares to name a squad of around 27 players at the end of next week for the South Africa and New Zealand matches. You don’t want to tour New Zealand with a below strength side. As Dragons coach Paul Turner says, it’s not the best place to go anyway, history proves that after Wales have taken some hefty beatings there.

But while Gatland is at least taking some of the fear out of it by getting Wales to play against the top teams from Down Under, it won’t help morale ahead of the World Cup either if they come back with their tail between their legs.

Nothing very surprising, though, about the way France have dominated northern hemisphere rugby this year at international and club level.

They swept to the Grand Slam even if they were rather more orthodox than past teams and didn’t show much of their traditional magic. They showed they could do it the other way as well, by playing the power game courtesy of some big, athletic forwards.

Ireland were their major challengers, but they proved no match and even start to look as though they are going over the hill – and so it has proved at European club and regional level as well.

For the French will provide three of the four finalists in the two major competitions, the Heineken Cup and the Amlin Challenge competitions.

The final of the senior competition will be between two of their sides - Toulouse and Biarritz, appropriately at the Stade de France, and again they did so at the expense of the Irish.

Heineken Cup kings Toulouse comfortably put paid to Leinster while Biarritz got the better of Munster without much difficulty, once again the Irish looking decidedly on the way down after their years of plenty.

And in the Amlin Challenge, new kids on the block Toulon proved that you can buy success when their team of all stars reached the final, though little Connacht gladdened the hearts by pushing them all the way.

At least Wales will provide a finalist with the Blues making it by disposing of Wasps in the other semi-final, deservedly so after scoring the only two tries with a devastating performance from Xavier Rush thrown in for good measure.

How they are going to miss him next season when he will be playing against them in the Magners League lining up for Ulster. It is said he is going for big bucks, but I gather it’s not so much that as for the guarantee of playing fewer games which will extend his career for another year or so.

Meanwhile, the Dragons have to go to the Liberty Stadium on Friday to face an Ospreys team thirsting for revenge after folding before a passionate Rodney Parade crowd last month.

A bonus point victory will assure them of a home game in the play-offs, but there is nothing on the outcome for the Dragons and given their horrendous injury list they can’t expect to get anything from it apart from trying out more youngsters.

But that should not detract in any way from what has been a season of transformation, and in Europe they at least had the satisfaction of going out against one of the finalists in Biarritz.

A lot more should come from them when it all starts up again in September – provided they can stay relatively injury free.