WALES are ready for a Celtic cracker against Ireland in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final at the Wellington Stadium – and Newport Gwent Dragons hooker Lloyd Burns believes Wales can go all the way to the final.

Wales have reached only their fourth quarter-final in seven attempts and their first for eight years as a result of their record 66-0 victory over Fiji at Waikato Stadium yesterday, eclipsing the previous best of 58-14 in 2002.

It finally erased the memory of their humiliating exit at the hands of the Pacific Islanders in 2007, but was perhaps equalled in many ways by Ireland’s 36-6 win against Six Nations opponents Italy just hours later.

It’s all set up for a humdinger now, with the Irish hellbent on avenging their controversial defeat at Wales’ hands at the Millennium Stadium this year when Mike Phillips scored the match-winning try after using the wrong ball.

Burns, who scored his first try for Wales yesterday, puts his belief that Wales can win the quarter-final and make the final down to the growing confidence in the squad.

“Going all the way to the final is what we came here for. The boys were confident going on to the plane and now we’re only two games away from doing it,” he said.

“Those two games (against Ireland, and England or France) will be very tough, but there’s a lot of belief among us. I keep going back to the training camp in Poland when we had the belief put into us.

“We have a mixed bag of old heads and a lot of youth which is all blending in well. I believe we can go all the way, everyone does.

“Ireland will be out to get a bit of revenge over what happened in the Six Nations with that try, it’ll be an epic encounter. They were really good against Australia and we can’t take them lightly. We’ll be giving it 100%.”

Asked about the merits of Ireland’s powerhouse back row – Sean O’Brien, Stephen Ferris and Jamie Heaslip, Burns replied, “There’s no better back row than ours.”

Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll knows exactly what to expect in the quarter-final and he wants more than a last-eight place.

“Hopefully we’ll keep it going for a while yet,” he said after Ireland’s storming second-half performance against Italy. “It’s going to be another great game, they’ve been very close in recent years and I’m sure we’ll do our homework on one another.

“It’ll be the team that turns up on the day that goes through to the semi-final.”

Coach Warren Gatland urges caution but is clearly satisfied that Wales have achieved their first objective.

“We knew we were coming here to try to get out of our pool and we have achieved that goal. We have built confidence and momentum going into the quarter-final and have looked after some players while others coming back from injury are in good shape.

“If you come out of a fairly tough pool it does set you up for quarter-finals and maybe beyond that.

“We will be tough on ourselves when we review the games. We’re under no illusions that Fiji made ten changes and we mustn’t get carried away and we must keep things in perspective. But hopefully we can go a bit further.”