The Times Magazine 13out South Africa to avenge their 2019 World
Cup final defeat.
Itoje played in that 2019 final, when
England were favourites to win. But after
he accidentally knocked team-mate Kyle
Sinckler unconscious after just two minutes,
they seemed to go to pieces. Itoje has
described the defeat as the worst experience
of his life, on or off the pitch, and refused to
wear the runners-up medal.
“But now I use that feeling. You remind
yourself what losing a World Cup is like. And
part of our training is scenario planning. What
happens if we go 14 points down in the first
10 minutes? What happens if our biggest player
is concussed or the fly half is sin-binned? We
rehearse the emotions that arise and I think
I am mentally stronger than I’ve ever been.
I’m becoming the player I know I can be.”
The rise of Maro Itoje has been meteoric.
As a child he played basketball and represented
England in junior shot-put competitions. He
was 11 years old when he picked up a rugby
ball for the first time – 8 years later, he was
captain of the England Under-20 team that
won the 2014 Junior World Championship.
“My family is Nigerian and rugby isn’t
really part of the culture, so it took a while
for me to be introduced to the sport. But
the physicality of it and the beauty of afree-flowing team, I loved it. To me it seems
crazy that I might never have found it.”
Itoje’s journey is also symbolic.
Traditionally, rugby union has been very
white and middle class. In 2003, when
England won the World Cup, they had one
black player, Jason Robinson. Now the squad
is about 30 per cent black.
In 2020, Itoje’s cousin Beno Obano, who
plays rugby for Bath, made a documentary
for Amazon called Everybody’s Game. A
2019 survey had shown that 37 per cent of
international players were educated at private
school, but Obano describes in the film how
he discovered the game despite growing up on
an estate in Peckham, south London. Another
player, England prop Ellis Genge, grew up on
a Bristol council estate. He is the most vocal
interviewee in the documentary and says what
initially put him off rugby was that he thought
it was for “wankers wearing chinos”.
“Ellis is always quite fruity with his
language but yes, there are still class and
race issues,” says Itoje. “It’s changing though.
I believe kids from disadvantaged backgrounds
could revolutionise the game. When they play
it, they have that hunger. But it’s interesting
to me the subtle signals we receive that tell us
this sport or that sport is meant for you or not
meant for you.”
Itoje is not from a hardscrabble life himself.
He was born in Camden, north London,
to dad Efe, a teacher, and mum Florence,
who works in property. He went to a north
London prep school called Salcombe, then
a state boarding school called St George’s
in Hertfordshire (also attended by current
England captain Owen Farrell). Aged 16,
Itoje won a scholarship to Harrow, the alma
mater of Winston Churchill. Sometimes other
kids used his “English” name, Miles. As a
prefect, he wore a top hat and bow tie and
carried a cane.
“I was very fortunate, I know that,” he
says. “And you can’t argue with education as
a route to realising potential. But I want young
hopefuls to know that, these days, private
school is not the only route into the sport.
There is a lot of talent going to waste because
young people don’t know that.”
He loved Harrow, though he has said the
teaching of black history was deficient. These
days he is something of an activist. In 2020,
following the murder of George Floyd in
Minneapolis, Itoje attended a Black Lives
Matter march in Hyde Park, London. And
when the statue of slave trader Edward
Colston was tipped into the docks in Bristol,
he applauded the wider cultural awakening
afoot across the country. He watched the
recent “Colston Four” court case with interest.
“It was a sound verdict but it is a tricky
one. Overall I wasn’t unhappy with it. I think
that whole episode marked a great changeIn 2012, the year he signed his first professional contractWith England team-mates at a training session, 2020With the Junior World Championship trophy, 2014He attended a Black Lives Matter march. On the
Colston Four court case: ‘I wasn’t unhappy with it’