All Black lock contender Mark Cooksley was pleased with his workout for Waikato in a NPC warm-up match against Taranaki in New Plymouth on Saturday and believes he is on track to regain his spot in the All Black Test 22.

Kiwi coach Wayne Smith will reduce his 23-man squad for Saturday's Bledisloe/Tri-Nations Test against Australia to 22 on Wednesday. A decision will then be made on the fitness of North Harbour lock Troy Flavell, who was unable to train at the Burnham training camp in Christchurch last week due to back spasms.

Cooksley was recalled to the All Black squad after the they performed poorly in the lineouts and kick-offs in the Tri-Nations win over South Africa in Cape Town. He was selected in the original Test squad in June, but injury forced him out and on Saturday he played his first game since sustaining the injury.

He played only one half, but proclaimed himself happy with the outing. He and Waikato teammate Marty Holah rejoined the All Blacks in Dunedin on Monday as part of the 23 selected last week.

According to the Waikato Times, reports of Saturday's match at Rugby Park produced conflicting opinions, with some suggesting Cooksley had had a quiet match and harmed his Test selection chances by not playing a full game.

However, Waikato coach Kiwi Searancke disagreed. "I thought he went bloody well. Our scrum dominated their scrum and our lineout dominated their lineout and Mark Cooksley was a big part of that," Searancke told the Waikato Times.

Cooksley was a late addition to the Waikato starting line-up and because he had missed a week where the team had put together most of their calls and patterns.

He said he had come through the outing well. "I was only going to have half a game. I didn't want to do anything stupid and cost myself a chance before I got down to Dunedin."

Cooksley said there had been some confusion when he left last week's training camp as to whether he should be playing or not, but All Blacks coach Smith confirmed he wanted the "Big Rig" to play at least half a game for Waikato.