The 31-year-old veteran of 71 tests urged caution for those expecting a seamless transition from wing to centre for namesake Ben Smith, his likely replacement when the Hurricanes skipper takes a sabbatical at the end of the year, but once set the added depth in a problematic area can only help as the World Cup defence in 2015 rapidly approaches.
His first priority, though, is to quickly gel with Francis Saili, the 22-year-old making his test debut against the Pumas at Waikato Stadium.
Smith has hardly played with the Blues player but feels he has the makings of an extremely good second-five. Indeed, he can see a young Ma'a Nonu lurking in the young man's frame and feet.
"The way he can break a line and his passing is impressive," Smith said. "There will be a lot of learnings for him in terms of option taking and so on, but for sure, he and Ma'a are very similar.
"I know he will create a lot of opportunities and that's always exciting for a centre, you can feed off that. At the start of the year I hardly new him, I hadn't seen him play. I'm still learning about him, we haven't had a lot of time together."
At the start of the Rugby Championship, Smith weighed up his schedule and was energised by the thought he had only six tests (plus a Bledisloe Cup test against Australia in Dunedin on October 19) remaining for the year. For him the light is at the end of a long tunnel - a tough Super Rugby season with the under-performing Hurricanes was made worse by a concussion injury, and he admitted the thought of a break was appealing.
"It's pretty motivating, you've got to be careful not to get too ahead of yourself but it's served me well. It's kept me really up.
"I was talking to Dan [Carter] after he announced his [sabbatical] and I know it added to his frustration when he got injured. If you've announced a break you're going to want to end on a good note. That's how I'm feeling at the moment. I think I'm going to miss it and that's a good thing.
"I think it will benefit the team ultimately, the same as when Richie [McCaw] was away. I think we grew as a team. It was tough obviously at the time but you deal with it and you're better as a result."
As for Ben Smith slotting straight in, he said: "...It will be a big change. It's not as easy as some people think. The attacking opportunities are quite different. You've got to wait until what's created inside you whereas at wing you can counter-attack more and that's what he's good at.
"He's still pretty new to wing and I think that's why they wanted to give him time to sort that position out."
