British and Irish Lions head coach Warren Gatland has hinted that Maro Itoje could captain his team when they tour South Africa next year.
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The four previous Lions tours to South Africa have all been captained by second-rowers with Willie John McBride (1974), Bill Beaumont (1980), Martin Johnson (1997) and Paul O’Connell (2009) leading the famous touring team in Test series against the Springboks and Gatland believes England and Saracens lock Itoje is capable of doing the same.
“He’s an intelligent player and an intelligent man and has been incredibly successful in his career,” Gatland told Rugby World.
“He would definitely be in contention as one of the possibilities as captain.
“It’s about picking the squad and then saying who do we think will be captain material. Ideally, it’s somebody who has come from a team that’s been pretty successful. The next question is if we were picking the Test team now, is there a good chance this person would make that Test team?”
England captain Owen Farrell and Wales skipper Alun Wyn Jones are also candidates for the leadership role. Itoje, who is also capable of playing on the blindside flank, is one of the world’s leading locks and the 25-year-old is someone which Gatland rates highly.
“Itoje is the name that keeps cropping up,” he added.
“You look at that and go, well, there are some pretty good second-rows around and he’s not bad. You have Courtney Lawes and George Kruis.
“How’s Alun Wyn Jones going at that time? There’s James Ryan. There’s no doubt about Itoje’s quality.”
