Former All Blacks loosehead prop Wyatt Crockett will captain the Crusaders in their opening pre-season match, against the Highlanders at Rugby Park, Greymouth, on Friday night.
The only other All Black in the starting line-up is new recruit, lock Tom Donnelly, who was a Highlander last year.
All Blacks Ben Franks (prop) and George Whitelock (flanker) will get game time off the interchange bench and while halfback Andy Ellis is listed among the reserves he will only play if something goes amiss with the other halfbacks, Willi Heinz or Mark Swanepoel.
The Crusaders travel to Greymouth on Wednesday and will visit schools from Westport down to Fox Glacier as part of a three-day camp which culminates with the Highlanders match.
Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder said on Monday that apart from captain Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, the other World Cup winning All Blacks would be introduced for the second pre-season match against the Hurricannes at Mangatainoka on February 11.
Carter, away on his honeymoon, and McCaw, recovering from surgery on his foot, will not appear in the Super 15 competition until the fifth round in late March.
"Our All Black World Cup squad members are still two or three weeks behind the rest of the squad so we want to make sure we don't under-prepare them for the competition," Blackadder said.
Blackadder said he had learnt from past experiences that it did not pay to cram the players with too much detail in the build-up.
"Less is more and we will try to work on one or two things. After all the training we've been doing we want a good hit-out and actually get to trial our systems and put ourselves under a little bit of pressure.
"But how well we do the basics will be the key on Friday night. This is just the first part of our building towards hitting the ground running against the Blues [in the first round on February 24]."
Team: 1.Wyatt Crockett (c), 2.Quentin MacDonald, 3.Nick Barrett, 4.Ross Kennedy, 5.Tom Donnelly, 6.Joe Wheeler, 7.Matt Todd, 8.Luke Whitelock, 9.Willi Heinz, 10.Tyler Bleyendaal, 11.Adam Whitelock, 12.Ryan Crotty, 13.Robbie Fruean, 14.Sean Maitland, 15.Tom Marshall.
Interchange: Joe Moody, Ben Franks, Sam Prattley, Ben Funnell, Codie Taylor, Luke Romano, Dominic Bird, Brendon O'Connor, George Whitelock, Mark Swanepoel, Mitchell Scott, Patrick Osborne, Andy Ellis.