The 25-year old has only recently returned to New Zealand after spending two seasons playing for Sale Sharks in the Guinness Premiership and his struggles to adapt to the pace of international rugby were evident in a disjointed display against Italy in Christchurch last week.

Graham Henry's men open the defence of their Tri-Nations against a firing Australian side, despite recent controversies around the axing of Lote Tuqiri, and with Donald out Henry has confirmed that McAlister will start despite his recent struggles.

"He's finding the transition from midfield to five-eighth, where he becomes the navigator, bloody hard," Henry said.

Donald missed the Test against Italy with a hamstring injury and while he probably could feature at a push, the All Blacks medical staff have decided to err on the side of caution against Robbie Deans' Wallabies side. Henry said that inside-centre Ma'a Nonu and the scrum-halves would be responsible for helping McAlister to settle and that given time he's sure that McAlister will flourish.

"It took Dan Carter a long time to be acclimatised to that. Now you're expecting guys to come in and just be God-like in that position."

Campese, who played 101 times for the Wallabies and scored 64 tries, also told the BBC that the sentiment that rugby in the southern hemisphere is better than in the north is not the case at all.

"We say that all the time, but really, is it?" he said. "You guys have had a long season, you're coming off a season, we're starting our seasons, so it's really hard to tell. We've got to try and get one season that combines everybody so we can tell who are the best teams in the world."

His comments come in the wake of the Lions' tour of South Africa where a short preparation period for the tourists has evidently failed to hinder both their appetite for exciting Test match rugby and their performance levels, despite being at the end of a long season that got underway in September last year.

Campese does though feel that a difference in officiating interpretations between the two hemispheres played a role in dictating the outcome of the results of the opening two Test matches of the Lions series.

"Two Test matches, two different referees, two different rulings of the game," said Campese. "I think that demonstrates that international rugby at the moment is a bit of a debacle. We've got two different hemispheres who have got different rules and the interpretations are different."