Nigerian-born rugby star, Maro Itoje is set to be named England’s captain for their planned tour of South Africa, as coach of the side, Warren Gatland has come out to publicly declare that the Saracens ace has great leadership potentials, megasportsarena.com gathered.
Gatland declared emphatically that Itoje has what it takes to successfully captain The Lions, even as the gaffer looked ahead of making a huge impact on next year’s tour, as he says the Nigerian-born star, who was part of England’s Rugby World Cup silver-winning squad, is quite intelligent and resilient.
As he prepares his tactics for next summer’s outing in South Africa, Gatland admitted that the four previous Springbok series have all been captained by locks, Willie John McBride, Bill Beaumont, Martin Johnson and Paul O’Connell, but believes Itoje has all the credentials to be equally successful, if not better than those before him.
Gatland posited: “He’s an intelligent player and an intelligent man and has been incredibly successful in his career. 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?’
This development comes almost a year after rugby analyst, Robert Kitson opined that making Itoje captain could give England a new dimension in the game, with fresh success expected from The Lions’ tour set to start on July 3, 2021, with three Tests on weekends from July 24 onwards.
Kitson opined back then: “The case for transferring the captaincy to a pack member is certainly supported by history. Every recent Six Nations champion has been led by a forward – Alun Wyn Jones, Rory Best, Dylan Hartley, Paul O’Connell, Sam Warburton – while the British and Irish Lions have opted for a similar policy.
“With Hartley recovering from knee surgery and no longer certain of his starting place, making an early start to the Maro Itoje era would not be entirely illogical. Itoje will be 25 in October, a year younger than Leitch was in 2015.
“It would be a significant tweak to install Itoje – or even his Saracens teammate Jamie George – but worth the risk if it helps England become even slightly more composed under persistent pressure and leads to them kicking away slightly less ball.”
