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.
