Dan Carter. Photo / Paul Estcourt
When it comes to drop goals in this country, they're just not in our nature, which has to be the All Blacks' biggest concern heading into the Rugby World Cup.
We need to be careful our pride doesn't cost us a tournament. Just because we are reluctant to take drop goals - it's in the rules and it gets you three points.
It was never the case to practise drop goals when I was involved with the All Blacks or Crusaders. I haven't been involved in New Zealand rugby for quite a while but I've been present at the games. What you can see is the All Blacks have a system - everything they do, they know what they're trying to achieve out of it, but nothing I've seen in the past four years since the Rugby World Cup is programmed for a drop kick.
Do they have it in their repertoire? I wonder. The good news is, it's not too late and I'm adamant that while they may not plan it and implement it in their game plan, they would have spoken about it with Gilbert Enoka and been told, "you need to recognise this because it's hurt us in the past ..."
It's all about player responsibility. When you need three points, your experienced players must step up and make the call, and we have an abundance of them. It's easy to reel off names such as McCaw, Woodcock, Mealamu and Carter but it's the other brains that you need to engage, such as Ma'a Nonu, Conrad Smith and Ben Smith. Those guys saying, "boys, we need to get our hands on the ball and go for a drop kick". And everybody needs to believe in it.
Looking towards the tournament, from what I saw at Twickenham at the weekend, it looks like Australia could well come out of the "pool of death" by winning it. I was at the England-Ireland match and was not impressed with what I saw, which goes for all the Northern Hemisphere teams this season. England, France and Ireland have been inconsistent and Wales have been fairly average.
Walking among the punters out of the ground, a few of them were doubtful that England would actually beat Fiji. England are not quite galvanised at the moment and the Fiji game is a dangerous one for them to open the World Cup, with all the pressure and expectation.
Wales will no doubt get up for the England clash, as they always fire when they face their old foes, but it's just whether they will front in the other pool games to cause some havoc.
Which puts Australia in the box seat. They've beaten the All Blacks this season and I don't know what to read from that Eden Park clash and all of Michael Cheika's selection decisions. If they do pull it off, the Wallabies will have a lot more comfortable path to the final than the All Blacks - which we could become envious of.
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