Andrew Harriman is anxious that our conversation is not all about him. It could easily be. The son of a wealthy Nigerian tribal chief and a lover of Ferraris, Harriman has a colourful story to tell. “The Prince” was the fastest player in England. He trained with Linford Christie and scored tries freely for Harlequins. Harriman won a single Test cap, in 1988, and captained England to victory at the inaugural World Cup Sevens five years later; a team that included Tim Rodber, Lawrence Dallaglio and Matt Dawson.
Harriman is on the phone because he wants to talk about his nephew. For a couple more days, Harriman can crack the joke that he and Maro Itoje share 100 England caps between them. When Itoje leads out England against Ireland on Saturday afternoon, he will become the ninth men’s player to reach a century of appearances with the red rose on his breast. Quite remarkably, Itoje will have started in 96 of those games.
But Harriman’s own story provides important context to Itoje’s achievements as a British-Nigerian leader of the national team, the first black captain of the British & Irish Lions and the face of rugby in England. Henry Pollock has come on to the scene as the young punk but Itoje is the sport’s statesman. He was a GQ man of the year in 2025. He has spoken at 10 Downing Street.
“The Prince” captained England to victory at the inaugural World Cup Sevens
ALAMY
Harriman played in a different time. Reports from that World Cup Sevens at Murrayfield state that the Scottish crowd booed England from start to finish, with the worst jeers reserved for Harriman, who would not have required his Cambridge University degree to work out why.
He regrets not adding to that solitary England cap. Will Carling captained England for the first time in that game against Australia. Paul Ackford also made his Test debut. Three years later, they both played the Wallabies again in the 1991 World Cup final. Harriman had scored 18 tries in 19 games for Harlequins that season but did not make the tournament squad. He remembers finding it hard to watch England field Simon Halliday, a centre, on the wing. He felt his face did not fit.
“I’ve moved on. I’m 61 years old. So I don’t want to sound like it’s all about me,” he says. “This is about my nephew who I think has reached the absolute Everest of rugby, the top pinnacle, despite the many challenges and doubts that he faced. I’m absolutely delighted for him. I couldn’t overstate it. He’s an amazing young man. He has really made us all extremely proud.
“But if you ask me whether I had such challenges, of course. It was extremely hard. But that’s life. You come across these blockages, these assumptions about you that most likely aren’t true. People make their judgments and you live and die by them, as they do.
Harriman during his playing days. “There were allegations of too many outside interests, like Ferraris and stuff. I didn’t realise that affected the way you played rugby,” he says
SHUTTERSTOCK
“There were allegations of too many outside interests, like Ferraris and stuff. I didn’t realise that affected the way you played rugby. Disappointments make you. They may not give you more England caps, but they make you a better person in the long run. It all depends in life how you react to those setbacks.”
That all sounds like the kind of sage advice an uncle would pass on to a nephew who had also been on the wrong end of negative perceptions. Harriman and Itoje speak regularly. “In the past few years we’ve become extremely close,” he says. “What I’ve tried to do is draw a contrast between how rugby was for us and how rugby is for him.”
For the first years of his career, Itoje knew only success. He won trophies with Saracens and England. He became a cult hero with a starring role as the Lions defeated New Zealand in Wellington in 2017. He was widely seen as a future England captain. Warren Gatland had him shortlisted for the Lions role in 2021.
Eddie Jones took a different view. While he was still England’s head coach, Jones wrote a book in which he described Itoje as being too “inward-looking” to lead the team. It is staggering that the RFU sanctioned publication of that book, given how destabilising it could have been.
Itoje with Jones in 2021. “Maro was a deputy for way too long,” Harriman says
GLYN KIRK/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Itoje was stung by those comments. Harriman was furious. He saw in Itoje all the character traits to be a strong leader. From his own experiences of coaches who he felt cared more about what car he drove than how he played, Harriman recognised the challenge Itoje would face in handling that negative perception.
“If you look at how the team has evolved, if you look at how the Lions team operated with him [in 2025], if you look at what came before him, I think it’s a clear and obvious error of judgment not to have made him captain years and years ago,” Harriman says.
“I’m biased, obviously, but I think the facts are bold and stark. If you look at the results since becoming captain you’ll see there’s a greater cohesion and a greater sense of purpose [in the team]. I’m not saying it’s Maro alone, it’s a squad game, and well done to the management.
Harriman says of his nephew: “He has reached the Everest of rugby. He’s an amazing young man”
ALAMY
“Some people are born with a certain innate calmness and self-confidence and Maro is one of them. Maro’s self-assuredness and confidence never spill over into arrogance, which is one of the dangers. If he had a certain swagger, I’d be the first to say to him, ‘No, no, no.’ But his real success in life is his character. Everything else spins out from that.
“That’s why he’s been able to take the brickbats, the knocks. And he’s continued to be himself. What he does is he allows other players to also come forward. His reading of the ebbs and flows of a game of rugby, I think are second to none.
“He was a deputy for way too long. I don’t think the England under Eddie Jones was necessarily the England that we all wanted it to be. I thought it was a pretty distasteful comment. And the great thing is that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I like to think that Eddie Jones, having been in the game for so long now, realises that perhaps he actually missed a big trick himself.”
Harriman says the England, Saracens and Lions captain, pictured at a No10 reception last year, represents the best of modern-day Britain
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA WIRE
The world may have advanced since the days when Harriman played, but it has not moved so far that racism has been eradicated from society or from sport. Itoje will always tackle the subject head on. In the past week alone he has delivered a considered condemnation of the abuse aimed at Edwin Edogbo, the new Ireland lock, and Vinícius Jr, the Real Madrid forward, and of comments on immigration made by the owner of Manchester United.
Harriman believes that Itoje’s elevation into captaincy roles with Saracens, England and the Lions represents the best of modern-day Britain.
“The world is a lot more global, a lot more multicultural, particularly in the UK,” Harriman says. “The players also. In an England team that now represents so many different people, I think it’s a real strength of Maro and the team.
“Maro wouldn’t be the player that he is without being the person that he is. Not just because I’m also British-Nigerian, but I think that fact is absolutely integral to his success as a person and as a player.
“I give absolute credit to the way his parents brought him up, interspersing the Nigerian culture of discipline and decency with the English culture of allowing kids to develop their own characters. That brings a certain confidence. That combination has really been the elixir of his success.”
On Saturday, Itoje will join Ben Youngs (127), Dan Cole (118), Jason Leonard (114), Owen Farrell (112), Courtney Lawes (105), Danny Care (101), and present team-mates George Ford and Jamie George (both 107 not out) in England’s centurion club. For Harriman — and again he concedes personal bias here, although there is merit in his argument — Itoje stands above them all.
“You don’t see any other player who has achieved that with such efficiency, quality and consistency,” Harriman says. “It has almost seemed effortless. My friend Jason Leonard got 100-plus caps. But if you look at the way Maro has arrived at 100 caps in terms of excellence of performance, I don’t think there’s been any England player to rival that.”