Carter desperate to win fitness battle

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New Zealand star Dan Carter is confident he will be fit to face Wales in Cardiff tomorrow.

The Canterbury ace has seemingly been on a personal crusade at Wales' expense, scoring 92 points from just five appearances against them.

But a calf muscle haematoma suffered during last Saturday's victory over Australia in Tokyo has restricted Carter to only light training this week.

Stephen Donald is on stand-by to take over should Carter be ruled out, but the 27-year-old remains upbeat about his prospects.

"I am feeling confident," said Carter. "I have been managing it all week and only done light training.

"I have been keeping the weight off it. I had a run with the team (on Thursday), and I will see how I am on Friday."

If Carter plays - and maintains his healthy points average against Wales - then he will set a new All Blacks record at some stage tomorrow evening.

He requires 16 points to overtake Andrew Mehrtens' mark of 967 as New Zealand's all-time highest international scorer, yet it is an achievement the modest fly-half would merely take in his stride.

"Milestones are not why I play the game, but if I do get there, it will be pretty good.

"I want to get stuck in and not hold back on Saturday. Wales are a strong team - I've never had an easy game against them.

"They are always fired up, so we are going to need to work hard and stick to our game-plan.

"Wales have some exciting runners and some strong ball-carriers. We will need to match them and get our game going."

All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw, who leads New Zealand for the 41st time on his 78th Test appearance, expects a high-octane occasion to replicate last year's clash against Wales.

On that occasion, the All Blacks found overdrive to score 20 unanswered points after trailing 9-6 early in the second-half.

"Over the last few years, games against Wales have been better challenges, especially last year, when we didn't get away from them until the last few minutes," he said.

"Wales come at you with a lot of passion and they pile into things. We are expecting the same this time.

"They have good players, and we realise we are in for a tough match. We would be idiots if we thought it was going to be easy.

"We had a tough middle part of this year, there is no doubt about that.

"We had a few injuries, and maybe the senior players didn't lead like we could have done, but I don't think we are too far off.

"South Africa played some pretty good rugby in the Tri-Nations - they are playing probably the best rugby in the world at the moment - but it would be easy to look at it all doom and gloom."