May is the epitome of England’s fierce desire to be the best

THERE was an accurate phrase muttered by legendary French scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili during England’s rout of France on Sunday that summed up the difference between the two sides.

“We are driving a car, they are driving a Formula One.”

The big problem for France was that Yachvili’s comment came when the score was only 8-3 in the home side’s favour — 60 minutes later the size of the gulf between the two sides had been brutally exposed by another genius game plan from Ed- die Jones, Scott Wisemantel and their chief lieutenants Owen Farrell, Henry Slade and Elliot Daly.

But as Jones explained afterwards, the pinpoint kicking is only half of the equation.

“Owen’s got a good sense of the game, but your kicks are only as good as your chases,” he explained. “Some of the chasing was outstanding. Jonny May’s like when you go to the park and see someone with a tennis ball and they throw it, the dog runs 100mph and chases it and brings it back. He does that pretty well.

“He’s really worked hard on his game. There’s a few of them... Owen and George (Ford) work very hard at their craft and Jonny May is one of the hardest working guys in our team. His improvement is all due to his desire to be the best and be part of a team that wants to be the best.”

The sight of May haring upfield inspires those around him to join the charge, sensing an opportunity to trap players deep in their own territory or, as in France’s case, expose the areas that have been left threadbare.

But it also instils a fear among the opposition that causes them to lose their positioning, sense of direction and decision-making.

“It puts defenders in doubt,” added Jones. “Will he take them on the outside, so they can’t afford to drop too deep? It makes it hard to cover that space.”

Two years ago, May spoke about wanting to become not just the fastest wing in world rugby but also the best. His record is nearing a try every other game, but the first 30 of his caps can almost be disregarded given their stop-start nature. Instead, look at his most recent 12 appearances and you’ll see one of the best strike-rates in world rugby: 12 tries.

To put that into comparison, Ireland’s Jacob Stockdale has nine tries in 11, New Zealand’s Rieko Ioane has 11 in 11.

“Not just France, but every team wants to have an aggressive defence and get off the line through the field with 14 men in the frontline,” May said. “The game is always changing. You don’t know where the space is going to be.

“It seems to be that there’s a bit of space in the backfield at the moment and we want to be a team that takes the right option and finds the space.”

It’ll be quite the contest when he goes up against George North in two weeks’ time. But if May wins that battle, don’t expect him to take the plaudits himself in the slightest.

“My job is to put the ball down over the line,” he said. “It is the easiest job when the guys inside me are doing a brilliant job.” Treble yell: Jonny May bagged a hat-trick against France