Maro Itoje stamps his authority on Lions in comfortable win over Queensland Reds

Maro Itoje stamped his authority on the British and Irish Lions with a commanding display as the Queensland Reds were overwhelmed 52-12 at Suncorp Stadium.

Making his first appearance in Australia as Lions captain, Itoje was at the heart of an eight-try rout that saw the England skipper leave his calling card on Brisbane two-and-a-half weeks out from the first Test at the same venue.

Elliot Daly, Bundee Aki and man of the match Jac Morgan also impressed, while another pleasing development was the promise shown by first-choice half-back partnership Jamison Gibson-Park and Finn Russell.

Paired together for the first time because of Gibson-Park’s recent glute injury, they played 50 minutes and linked well despite having been limited to one training session as a combination.

Russell was replaced after 50 minutes having also started against Western Force four days earlier and was followed off the field by Daly, who took a heavy bang to his left arm to raise concern over his ongoing tour prospects.

Daly was making an astonishing 11th successive appearance in a Lions matchday 23 but was drafted into the team at short notice after Hugo Keenan was forced to withdraw because of illness.

The Lions continued with their high-risk, high-reward running game and while it produced a 21-12 interval lead against a Reds team that finished fifth in this year’s Super Rugby, the knock-on count at the same stage was 8-1 in the hosts’ favour.

It was their third outing on tour but they played like a team that had been thrown together in an error-strewn first quarter that saw two scrum penalties conceded, a line-out lost and the Reds boss the breakdown.

Tommy Freeman, Daly and Tom Curry made simple handling errors and there was worse to come when