Australia coach Ricky Stuart says he won't gift Test jumpers, refusing to guarantee he'll use his entire 24-man squad during the rugby league World Cup.

Stuart has named a 17-man team including four debutants, to face New Zealand on Sunday and while he will add two more players for injury cover he says only performances will dictate any changes made through the five-week tournament.

That means rookies David Williams, Anthony Watmough, Terry Campese and Darius Boyd could yet miss out on Australian debuts in the Cup.

"Performances will dictate that," said Stuart when asked if all players would play in the World Cup. "Training performances and playing performances.

"It would be lovely to be able to give everybody a Test jersey but we won't be and I have never handed a Test jersey out before. I won't be doing it here.

"There is not a player there that hasn't got the ability to play Test football.

"It would be terrific by the end of this tour that everyone has played a Test match, debutants included, but it's not something you just go handing around."

Stuart has previously stood by his word on that score, denying Parramatta winger Jarryd Hayne a debut during the 2006 Tri Nations series.

That 2006 series, when Australia beat New Zealand 16-12 in extra-time of the final, has taught Stuart a major lesson ahead of the World Cup.

Wary that his Kangaroos are going into the tournament without any warm up games, Stuart has dedicated more time to working on combinations among his key playmakers to ensure they don't produce the "rusty" performance predicted by captain Darren Lockyer earlier this week.

"I think I made a little bit of a mistake in the Tri Nations in 06 where I didn't put enough emphasis on our cohesion around the ruck," he said.

"That is something I've really put a lot of work into earlier in the week. Our cohesion around the ruck with our nine(Cameron Smith) and seven (Johnathan Thurston).

"Fortunately we have two players along with Darren (Lockyer) who play a lot together as well as Billy (Slater) at the back ... those four boys know each others' game very well.

"We have done a lot of work on our timing in ruck work and cohesive work and hopefully that is enough for this week."

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