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Sat in the delightful evening sunshine of Girona, Maro Itoje was deftly deflecting the questions he knew were going to come. It was October at England’s pre-Autumn Nations Series training camp in Catalunya and a British and Irish Lions year dawned. Sprawled out on the terrace in the plush surroundings, taking each question in turn with the due consideration and care that are his trademark as an orator, Itoje neatly said a lot while revealing very little when probed about his memories of past trips and captaincy ambitions.
“It’s an ambition of every British and Irish player to wear that red jersey,” Itoje admitted, though there was not too be any extended elaboration despite The Independent’s best efforts. “The most important thing is performance and I’ve got to make sure I am performing at a level that befits that jersey.
“The 2017 Lions tour, the whole atmosphere and experience was really special. It’s the closest I have ever felt to being a Beatle, it was manic and crazy. The supporters were great. It’s something I look back on very fondly. My goal with all these things is just play good rugby. Andy will make decisions that are right for the team. My goal is to play as well as I can to make sure I am in the mix.”
And in the mix he most certainly is. Bestowed with perhaps the highest honour in British and Irish Lions by Andy Farrell on Thursday, the England lock will lead the pride Down Under this summer. Having just been named Saracens skipper and developed into a growing leader of importance within Steve Borthwick’s side, Itoje no doubt expected the questions last October – perhaps what he did not expect was to emerge as the only bonafide candidate for the honour of Lions skipper mere months later.
In doing so, he joins an extremely select group. Lions leaders have, generally, tended to be Celts; only three Englishmen have led the quadrennial tourists since Bernard Gadney skippered the side (if not the boat taking them there) in Argentina in 1936. Bill Beaumont, a great statesman of the game, led the Lions on the controversial trip to apartheid South Africa in 1980 before Martin Johnson, another lock leader and world-class player, captained back-to-back trips in 1997 and 2001.
Itoje has qualities of each of them. A future in politics could yet await a figure who has natural charisma and skill as a communicator, but like Johnson, the England lock is a leader as much by deed as by word. Teammates have marvelled regularly at the standards to which the second row holds himself, instilled from his formative days in a Saracens dressing room that demanded as much.
The ill timing of the injury to Caelan Doris was a bitter blow to the Ireland No 8 but Itoje had already assembled an outstanding case for the captaincy. His past tours - 2017 in New Zealand, 2021 in South Africa – have shown that he is a player who rises to the occasion in Lions red, while those trips will also be useful experiences as he seeks to meld and mould his broadly-drawn squad.
Simply being England captain is no guarantee at all of touring. Owen Farrell four years ago broke a run of three tours without that figure travelling, Borthwick (2009), Chris Robshaw (2013) and Dylan Hartley (2017) each overlooked. The old theory in cricketing circles was that Australia selected the best side and then chose their skipper whereas England chose their best captain and then their side. There can be no such accusation here – in Itoje, the Lions have plucked England’s best player and best leader, too.
The journey to captaining the national team has not been straightforward, though. It was only after a difficult autumn that Borthwick felt compelled to act and demote the likeable and laudable Jamie George, feeling that a switch of skipper would be right for the team. It is not a change that his predecessor would have made; Eddie Jones famously felt Itoje too “inward-looking” to be the right figurehead of his team. But in a strong Six Nations both individually and for the collective, Itoje showed the right qualities of a modern captain. An 80-minute man able to transform his side’s fortunes, the 30-year-old was mature enough to relinquish certain duties to others, allowing opportunities for George, Ellis Genge and George Ford – contrasting but just as compelling talkers – to deliver key messages.
Itoje may be a figure of the rugby establishment in many ways – he is Harrow-educated and a member of the dominant club of the last 15 years – yet also an outsider of sorts. Take the field this summer and he will be the first Black man to captain the Lions in the concept’s 137-year history, an overdue reflection of a multicultural Britain. The son of Nigerian parents, his Pearl Fund charity supports disadvantaged children in west Africa, enabling them to have a better education. Away from the sport, he takes a keen interest in art, with his Akoje gallery hosting two pop-up exhibitions this month in Cavendish Square in Marylebone. These strands help make up a figurehead who is easy to warm to.
At a recent event celebrating St George’s Day at No 10 Downing Street, Itoje was invited to speak to the assembled guests, finding time to tease Keir Starmer with a nod to his own political ambitions amid a typically smooth articulation of the principles he espouses.
“We all don’t fit in a box,” Itoje said. “Human beings don’t fit in a box; we are not monoliths. I’m a rugby player, I’m an athlete, but that’s what I do, that’s not what I am. I have other interests – philanthropy, art, politics…I might refuse to leave here [Downing Street].
“I’m English, I’m British, and I’m also Nigerian and African. I’m deeply proud to carry all of my heritage with me every time I take the field.” A political future may have to wait but having won his own major election, Itoje will surely thrive as leader of the Lions pride.
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