Jonny May’s monkey came out. You get the feeling it does not happen very often but the veteran winger was beside himself after being told by Steve Borthwick that he would not be involved in England’s opening World Cup warm-up match against Wales, nor selected for his 33-man squad for the tournament.
May had spent the summer toiling away for a crack at a third World Cup, spending precious time away from his newborn son, Jaxon, and having not even been given the opportunity to prove himself – he is after all England’s second-highest ever try-scorer – he had reached the end of his tether.
“The truth is that on the Monday before Wales, [Borthwick] spoke to me and said as it currently stands you’re not playing at the weekend and aren’t in the 33,” says 33-year-old May. “That got my monkey out, I’ll be honest. I was like: ‘Well, what the hell am I doing here this week?’ I felt like that in that moment. ‘I’m not going and I’m not playing at the weekend, so why the hell am I here?’
“I went to the gym for 10 minutes and then stomped back to him and said I need another chat. I said: ‘I’m running this by you because maybe I don’t want to be here this week because why am I here? I’ve got my son at home.’ He said he didn’t want me to go home because I am next in and it doesn’t look good if you quit now and then have to be called back in. So I was like: ‘Fair enough, that was a good point.’”
Ultimately, May stuck to the task. He was one of a handful of players to keep attending training despite the fact they had been omitted from the 33. It cannot be easy watching everyone else finalise preparations for the tournament in France but May soldiered on and after Anthony Watson’s unfortunate injury against Ireland, he had his chance. May started England’s final warm-up match against Fiji – his first appearance under Borthwick – and inside eight minutes he ended the six-hour wait for a try by a back. He endured a mixed afternoon given the impact of Fiji’s right-winger Selestino Ravutaumada but May had done enough to take the final place in the World Cup squad after Watson’s withdrawal.
“I was disappointed because I expressed in week one I wanted a game and an opportunity to play,” he adds. “I reacted angrily but rationally. I didn’t scream and shout. But I’m glad I stayed and then the opportunity came to stay and train and then I calmed down. Things turned around, obviously I’m gutted for Anthony – it’s a cruel game at times, you learn that as you get older.”
May is under no illusions as to the size of the challenge England face in France. He believes some of the vitriol directed at Owen Farrell after his red card against Wales last month was “nasty” but accepts the criticism that has come the way of a side who have lost five of their last six games. “You can feel the vultures circling,” he says. “We’re aware of that. I think it’s actually made us tighter as a group this last month or so.
“When people are throwing shots at us from the outside we’ve got to be tighter on the inside. We can almost laugh at some of the things that have been said as it’s just from people who don’t understand what we’re trying to do. [The response to Farrell’s red card] stands out for me. It was a lot to witness. You see it with politicians when they’re doing something a little bit slimy. You think: ‘Well, fair enough, people have got a right to go after these people when somebody’s not doing something right,’ but all we’re trying to do here is do our very best.”
Despite his late inclusion in the squad, May is in the frame to start England’s tournament opener against Argentina on Saturday, with Henry Arundell and Elliot Daly both enduring fitness problems of late. “We probably went into the last World Cup with a lot of results behind us and a lot of preparation behind us,” says May. “We pretty much knew what the team was, for a start. There was a lot more certainty. This time, we’re definitely underdogs. We’re still finding our way, we’re still finding our team, we’re still discovering ourselves.”
