The strong-man fitness circuit incident at Saracens that wounded Itoje

Maro Itoje has recalled his formative years coming through the ranks at Saracens, including how his teenage failure in a strong-man fitness circuit relay forced him to grow up quickly to make the grade. The 28-year-old lock, who last Saturday won his 63rd England cap, linked up with the London club’s first-team as a 16-year-old and has never forgotten the welcome he immediately received.

“I remember the first time I went into Sarries, or the senior environment. I was 16 years old and they called me up to take part in first-team training,” he told the BT Sport High Performance Podcast.

“I was nervous but incredibly excited. All these players that I had seen on TV, I was now going to be in the changing room with them and train with them. So I was super excited but at the same time, incredibly anxious and nervous. I walked into the corridor and the first person I saw was Neil de Kock.

“He was like, ‘Hello, Maro, how you doing?’ Shook my hand straight away. I was like, ‘Wow, this is one of the most experienced players on the team and he is embracing me so warmly’. It really took me aback. We had players there like John Smit, who was the Springboks captain, a World Cup winner, doing the exact same.

“I was interacting with all these players and they were treating me with so much respect and were so kind to me, someone that they don’t know. There were so many young kids in the academy that it is hard to always show (them) respect, but they were all embracing me so, so warmly. It was the perfect place to grow, a perfect place for me to learn and expand my skills.”

That warm welcome, though, didn’t prepare Itoje for the shock-to-the-system level of Saracens physicality he quickly encountered. “The first impression was just the physicality of it,” he continued. “I was a 16-year-old playing with men, fully-formed men. At school, I was amongst the tallest, amongst the strongest, and I went into an environment where probably the nines could beat me up if they wanted to.

“So it was very different and being the position I am, that is the bit that you need to learn pretty quickly, especially if you want to accelerate your career – you need to be able to be tough. You need to have that grit, have that fight within you. Saracens spoke a lot that effort errors weren’t acceptable.

“If you make a skill error, then that is on the coaches or we can work on that. But what can’t be in question is your intent. What can’t be in question is your fight. What can’t be in question is how hard you are. You are willing to work. That is a non-negotiable. Growing up in that school of thought and seeing players in the team who had that fight in the positions that I wanted to get to, that was an example of where I needed to go.”

One wounding incident for Itoje at Saracens was flunking a strong-man fitness circuit relay. “I was maybe about 17 or 18 and was joining in with the senior session. They were doing this strong-man fitness circuit and we were pushing a prowler up and down, a relay type of race. So I joined one of the teams and they were pushing the prowler.

“It got to my turn. I’m like, ‘Ooh’ [gestures], I couldn’t push it. At the time, he is now a coach, Kelly Brown was like, ‘Oh, we gotta take some weight off for this little boy’. So he started taking the weight off and I was like, ‘Damn, I need to improve’.”

• BT Sport and the High Performance Podcast have teamed up to create new programming and interviews. Watch the Maro Itoje High Performance Podcast interview on BT Sport 3 from 18:30 on Friday, February 10 – btsport.com/pods. The interview is out now out via thehighperformancepodcast.com and popular podcast platforms.