All Blacks: Carter gets ready for action

Dan Carter looks to pass during an All Blacks training session. Photo / Getty Images

HONG KONG - Daniel Carter appears poised to start the Bledisloe Cup rugby finale on Saturday although assistant coach Wayne Smith warns the influential All Black playmaker may lack the match fitness to make a complete return from ankle surgery.

Carter yesterday ran freely during the team's first serious training session since arriving from Auckland.

Out of action since the Tri-Nations title-clincher against South Africa at Soweto on August 22, Carter shows signs of making a seamless return as the All Blacks attempt to open their end-of-year Grand Slam tour with a record 11th consecutive victory over Australia in 2010's fourth and final transtasman test.

Carter's rehabilitation programme remains on schedule.

"He's very good," Smith said. "He doesn't need a lot of managing, he knows what's needed and he sets about doing it."

Smith said there were no concerns about Carter's base fitness although there were reservations about the first five-eighths' ability to make his comeback span 80 minutes.

"I wouldn't have thought so," Smith said. "The game intensity with the contact takes its toll. You'd expect at some stage Stephen [Donald] will get on, but he [Carter] has amazed us before."

Carter has a history of picking up where he left off after an enforced break.

He missed eight months of last season after suffering an Achilles injury while on sabbatical in France and saved the All Blacks from defeat in Sydney after only one club game and two provincial outings for Canterbury.

Smith, meanwhile, was also positive about Sitiveni Sivivatu's return from shoulder reconstruction, suggesting the wing could be considered for the test against England at Twickenham on November 7 provided he gets through this weekend's provincial semifinal for Waikato against Auckland.

Drawing a parallel with utility back Isaia Toeava's comeback from a hip injury, Smith was confident Sivivatu would join the squad in London on Monday primed for action.

"Ice showed how quickly he was able to get up to match speed for Auckland. I think Siti will be the same for Waikato."

With Carter on the road to recovery and concerns over hooker Keven Mealamu's calf injury easing, the All Black selectors are unlikely to deviate from the optimum line-up.

But Smith said rather than focus on continuing their dominance over the Wallabies - and prolonging their 15-test winning run - the team were intent on improving their game after an edgy completion of the Tri-Nations.

"With us it's more about us getting our game going again," Smith said. "We were really good in [the June internationals] and at the start of the Tri-Nations and we fell off abit.

"Some little things we put a lot of work into early on we started taking for granted. A big focus for us is getting the detail right, getting the clarity and raising performance."

Maintaining communication in defence was one area requiring attention while Smith also emphasised the need to complete accurate lifts at restarts and lineouts - appropriately so after Brad Thorn was thudded to the ground during a drill in a session yesterday conducted before a group of schoolchildren.

At Wallabies training yesterday, they took no comfort from the fact that Carter, Richie McCaw and Kieran Read would be coming in cold after a break from provincial rugby.

"I don't think it's an advantage - none of our guys have been playing," Australian wing Drew Mitchell said.

Loose forward Richard Brown was more forthright. "It would be the silliest thing in the world to suggest we're better off for Richie not playing NPC."

- NZPA