Warren Gatland has set his Wales players the target of breaking into the top three in the world rankings by the 2011 World Cup. They currently lie in sixth but, with the top six teams involved in matches against each other this weekend, the men in red could move up at least one place if they beat Australia on Saturday and other results go their way.

Wales have long aspired to make the top three, starting when the now New Zealand coach, Graham Henry, was in charge a decade ago, but they have tended to melt under the heat of expectation.

Gatland has made Wales hard to beat in his first two years as coach and they won the first five matches under him to secure an unlikely grand slam in 2008."The challenge for us going forward is to cope with expectation," said Gatland, who announced one change from the side that defeated Argentina last weekend, with Dwayne Peel replacing Gareth Cooper at scrum-half.

"We have a 66% success rate since I have been here and we have played more Tri-Nations sides in that time than any other Welsh regime. We were not quite good enough to beat the All Blacks earlier this month and we have twice come up just short against South Africa, but we defeated Australia a year ago and these are the sides which will mark the next progression of the side.

"If we are to develop further as a team, the players have to be able to handle the pressure of expectation. They have responded magnificently to what we have put them through in the last couple of years but now they have to get to the next tier of being one of the top three teams in the world. That will take a lot of hard work and we have the ambition to succeed. We are playing the Tri-Nations teams six times in the next 12 months: if you want to be the best, you have to pitch yourself regularly against the top sides."