Maro Itoje expecting strong fightback from South Africa

British and Irish Lions lock Maro Itoje is expecting a strong backlash from South Africa when the two teams meet each other in the second Test at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.

The Lions managed to come from 3-12 behind to register a 22-17 win in the opening game of the series last weekend riding on a try from Luke Cowan-Dickie and a 14-point contribution from Dan Biggar.

The match was evenly poised for most part with the Lions eventually managing to go over the line to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series and Itoje, who impressed with three turnovers along with three tackles is expecting the World Champions to bounce back hard.

"This is a great win and I'm proud to be part of this match but we know that we need to do a job next week.

"That's when it really counts. I know they are big on analysis, they’ll look at that game a lot, pick up trends, pick up ways they can improve.

"I think they are just going to come with a higher intensity so they are going to come harder at the scrum, harder at the lineout, harder with their kicking game.

“That was probably where they got most change out of us so they’re probably going to look to attack that. So we need to be better in all three of those areas, we need to be cleaner, more efficient and do a lot better at our breakdown.”

The second game will also be played at Cape Town Stadium on 31st July.