Champion flyhalf Dan Carter admits he will have to "pull back" from running the show after being shunted to the centres for the All Blacks' Bledisloe Cup clash with the Wallabies in Hong Kong on Saturday night.

In a major selection gamble, All Blacks coach Graham Henry will start Stephen Donald at No.10 and Carter outside him - and the world's leading pivot concedes the "surreal" move requires both a mental and physical adjustment.

Long accustomed to being New Zealand's chief playmaker, Carter says it will be a new challenge allowing Donald to call the shots.

"That's something I've been working on all week," Carter said.

"Because you're so used to calling the moves and you're always I guess giving him feedback from set plays, I've had to sort of pull back and let him run the show because he's more than capable.

"He does it extremely well with the Chiefs and Waikato, so I just have to sit back and still provide that voice ... but more from phase play and providing options and letting him know what's going on from phase play.

"I know when I'm playing at 10, you have a lot of voice and it makes your job a lot easier.

"So that's my main role, to make the job as easy as I can for Steve."

Blessed with a beautiful running and passing game, Carter said he wouldn't be shirking his respectabilities if Donald called a play requiring him to "crash" the ball into the Wallabies' midfield defence, one of the prime requirements an inside centre.

"Definitely not. I'm not the biggest guy but I'll just have to bar up and get into it," Carter said.

"I might be a bit sorer than usual ... but in certain stages of the game, we can swap with our left foot-right foot combination. There's certain parts of the field that you prefer to kick from."

While he described the positional switch as "surreal", Carter said he was confident he would cope, having started his career in the centres and also moving to No.12 for the last half-hour of the All Blacks' last-up victory over the Wallabies in Brisbane last month.

"I've played enough rugby now to be able to slot between the two, so I don't see it as a problem," he said.

Carter, though, is not ready to also relinquish the goalkicking duties to Donald.

"I'm pretty happy to kick the goals," he said. "We're both more than capable, but I guess if I miss a few I'll be looking over a bit.

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