MARO ITOJE insists the new arrivals on the British and Irish Lions’ tour of Australia will be treated differently to the controversial “Geography Six” in 2017.

Scotland trio Rory Sutherland, Ewan Ashman and Darcy Graham will join Andy Farrell’s men over the coming week.

The fresh faces have been brought in to provide cover that will prevent key personnel from playing in the Test series while backing up in next Tuesday’s match against a First Nations and Pasifika XV.

Farrell’s decision to turn to those from Scotland’s tour of nearby New Zealand has evoked memories of eight years ago when Finn Russell, Allan Dell, Kristian Dacey, Tomas Francis, Cory Hill and Gareth Davie joined Warren Gatland’s Lions.

Picked because of their geographical location with their national sides and not on merit, they were shunned by some squad members and Gatland later revealed that internal concern over “devaluing the jersey” forced him to not deploy them off the bench against the Hurricanes.

Itoje’s Lions will take a different approach with their captain declaring “we are all in this together.”

“I have no doubt that they will be welcomed in,” said Itoje ahead of the Saturday’s first Test in Brisbane.

“We are all in this together. It’s not us and them. It doesn’t matter if there’s a late call-up. We’ve seen in the past how late call-ups have had huge impact on the tour in positive ways.”