Judge us on results, says Davies

Simon Davies, the Wales stand-in captain, accepts there will be no excuses this time around if the Welsh fail to make a serious challenge to qualify for the World Cup in South Africa.

Davies will captain an experimental side in a friendly against Norway in Wrexham tonight knowing that the coming qualifying campaign is the one for which John Toshack, the manager, and the players have been preparing over three years.

Toshack took over midway through a failed World Cup campaign, and has spent the Euro 2008 qualifiers pushing plenty of youngsters into his senior squad. When he took over he said, "Judge me on South Africa", and Davies accepts that judgement will also be made of the senior players as well if they fail to qualify for the 2010 finals.

Davies said: "It all really starts here, we have gone through two campaigns preparing for this. The manager said he should be judged on this next one and the players know that applies to them too. Realistically, second place will be our target. Germany will be favourites, but we'll have massive games with Russia and also Finland, two good sides, but we must aim to take points from them."

Wales will have only three Premier League players in the starting line-up tonight. Norway's squad includes seven top-flight players, but Toshack has been stripped of Craig Bellamy, Danny Gabbidon, Gareth Bale and James Collins through injury. David Edwards of Wolves could win his third cap and the Spurs teenager Chris Gunter his fourth.