It's easy to see the All Blacks as an awesome attacking machine with ball in hand, but one of the most under-rated things about them is their kicking game and that is often personified by Aaron Smith's skill at the base of the ruck.
Clearly one of Smith's strengths is his passing game - but against Argentina at Wembley we also saw elements of his running game shine, but most particularly we saw an excellent kicking game and it's that which I would like to focus on here.
His box kicking - a short and high kick from the base of the ruck designed to put pressure on the opposition with the possibility of winning it back through wings Julian Savea and Nehe Milner-Skudder - was outstanding.
In the modern game with good sides able to retain possession for a long time, when you do kick the all away you need to kick it accurately. When I watched England I noticed a lot of their kicking was aimless, particularly from halfback Danny Care and fullback Mike Brown.
If you're not using a running exit or kicking long to relieve pressure, you're looking for a box kick and it could be from deep inside your 22m area or from halfway. The different positions on the field present different challenges in terms of distance and angle but all the time it's about kicking to recover the ball. Smith has it down to a fine art and the All Blacks got a lot of change from it at Wembley.
It's very easy to assume that box kicking just happens, but it can be difficult because you don't receive the ball from a pass - you have to go digging for it, so your focus has changed, and you can't see the defenders. You have to give yourself time and space and you do that by taking a step back towards your tryline and hooingk the ball back over the ruck. All the while you have to ensure you don't kick it out on the full or dead.
The dynamic for the All Blacks change against Namibia because they have a left-footed kicker in TJ Perenara, a man who has improved his kicking significantly in recent times. He has to be as accurate as Smith but his different kicking foot means the angles are all different - something the All Blacks will be aware of - but which could catch the opposition by surprise.