Watch: All Blacks skills impress the internet

In Rugby World magazine’s Autumn Nations Cup special we have a column from Stuart Barnes, who describes All Blacks scrum-half Aaron Smith, saying: “He is as close to the perfect passer of a ball as the sport has seen.”

The nine’s recent form in the Bledisloe Cup has demonstrated as much already. And then a few videos of All Blacks skills drills landed on social media.

This one with Smith – which also featured TJ Perenara – caused a lot of Twitter users to comment, using phrases like “wow”, “crazy”, and “They’re just from another planet compared to any other teams.”

Related: Rugby Championship Australia v New Zealand live stream: How to watch the Tri-Nations

Smith does not start against the Wallabies at the weekend. Perenara starts at scrum-half, with Brad Weber to spring from the bench in his first appearance of 2020. So Smith can get a rest (or spend more time working on his skills).

Sure the passing is good, but what about some kicking?

The All Blacks also dropped this video of Beauden Barrett sending a kick into a bin from the other side of the field.

…And one of him plopping one into the arms of an on-rushing Rieko Ioane, on the other side of the field during their latest captain’s run.

And then they showed a few of their players going up in the air to catch some kicks.

Call it a hunch, but their might be some air traffic in the next showdown with the Wallabies…

Of the upcoming match, All Blacks boss Ian Foster said: “We have reset this week and our focus has been on this weekend and the Investec Tri-Nations.

“It’s an All Blacks-Wallabies Test and that’s special. We know how fired up they’ll be, so we have to make sure we are as well, because we don’t want to give ourselves any excuses at the end of it.”

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