'That got my monkey out': The moment Jonny May lost it with Borthwick

Jonny May remains one of the nicest guys in rugby. Not because he said a bright and breezy ‘Hello, how are you?” when he walked past RugbyPass after Monday training in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage.

It’s because he somehow managed to control his emotions on July 31 at Pennyhill when England boss Steve Borthwick bluntly told him he wouldn’t be playing against Wales that coming weekend in Cardiff…. and neither would he be picked in the 33 for Rugby World Cup.

He stomped off incredulously – “That got my monkey out, I will be honest” – battling with the grave news he had just received, gave himself 10 minutes in the gym to rationalise what had just happened and then had the foresight to seek out another chat with Borthwick which, in the long-run, became a Test career game-changer.

May could have understandably sworn and shouted at the head coach to assuage his pain at being left out and, as a consequence, harmed his chances of ever getting another call. After all, he had just given up his entire summer to train with England, starting on June 12 just two weeks after his first child, son Jackson, was born.

But the vexed winger instead managed to ask the right question of Borthwick, whose intriguing answer was enough to convince May to stay in the loop even though he was surplus to World Cup requirements.

Three weeks later he learned that was in the side to start the final Summer Nations Series outing versus Fiji and the following day, August 27, it was officially confirmed he would replace the injured Anthony Watson in the squad travelling to France 2023.

Fair play to May for his patience. Kudos too for the merry way he regaled his Borthwick rejection story. “The truth is on the Monday before Wales [July 31] he spoke to me and said, ‘As it currently stands, you are not playing at the weekend and you are not in the 33’.

“That got my monkey out, I will be honest, because I was like, ‘Well, what the hell am I doing here this week then?’ I felt like that. In that moment I was like, ‘I’m not going and I’m not playing at the weekend, why the hell am I here?’

“So I went to the gym for 10 minutes and then I stomped back to him and said I needed another chat and I said, ‘I’m just running this by you but maybe I don’t want to be here this week, why am I here? And I have got my son at home’.

“And he said he didn’t want me to go home because I’m next in and it doesn’t look good if you quit now and then you have to be called back in so I was like, ‘Yeah, fair enough, that’s a good point’. I have done this much time now, just calm down and get on with it. But yeah, that was my initial response with it.

“I was disappointed because I had expressed in week one (of training in June) that I wanted a game and an opportunity to play and it looked like I wasn’t going to get that, and I felt like I had worked hard and had played well and trained well and I really wanted it,” May continued.

“There is no right or wrong or easy way to tell somebody they are not in the team and I understand that from Steve’s part, but then to go away from that, I reacted angrily but rationally as well. I didn’t scream and swear at him. I was like, ‘What do you think about this because what am I doing here this week?’

“But I’m glad I stayed and then the opportunity came to stay and train and by then I had calmed down and I looked bigger picture. I was, ‘Right, I have been eight weeks or whatever away from home, what is the harm in three more to try and get a game?’ Hang on in there and then I would have felt better if I hadn’t (travelled for World Cup) knowing that I had given it every possible chance.”

Borthwick’s public persona is that of a tricky customer but May found his dealings with him over the summer to be that of a straight shooter, not a ducker and diver. “Definitely challenging, roller coaster, that would sum it up really.

"Just put a lot of hard work in. I felt like I had trained well and then competed well and then it looked like even though I missed out I wasn’t even going to get an opportunity to play. That was probably my biggest regret.

“I really wanted a game. If I got a game and then got told you’re not going, I could have handled that a lot better. So that is what made it particularly difficult for me.

"But on the flip side of it, Steve was available to talk and we must have had four or five intense but honest, open conversations whereby when he rang me on the Sunday to say I’m not in, I was in a better place to accept it because I had said everything I had needed to say if that makes sense.

“But then the opportunity to stay in and keep training, I wanted to do that because again I wanted a game so I was thinking, ‘Hang on, let’s look at this fixture sheet. We have just played Wales, we have Wales again, we have Ireland, boys may be a bit banged up’.

"I was thinking potential future scenarios; I thought maybe he might not want to play all his starters against Fiji and I thought just hand around three more weeks to get a game.

“I reset my goals, I really wanted one more game even though I had accepted I wasn’t going to go to a World Cup and I said I don’t want to wish injury upon anybody, so to support the boys and get a game, that was then my goal. But then unfortunately with what happened to Anthony, all of a sudden, I got a game and now I am here.

“It was pretty dark but what helped was those conversations that I had with Steve, but then things turned around. Obviously gutted for Anthony and it’s a cruel game. It can be cruel at times but you learn that as you get older.

"Cruel in terms of two things, you can not get picked and you can get hurt and that will probably happen to everybody at some stage along their career.”

May’s late inclusion means he will be lacking personal support in the stands if he is picked for Marseille this Saturday. “It’s all very last minute with my situation particularly. The ticket situation is a bit of a nightmare.

"We had these forms, 'order your tickets now' at the beginning of last week without knowing if you are playing or not, so pretty tricky to make plans regarding that and they are not cheap either.

“Two complementary and then up to order eight but that is difficult, you can’t say I am playing this game. You haven’t the luxury of saying I am playing this game now. We don’t even know who is playing on Saturday yet, so that is a bit tricky.

"Marseille is a bit of a nightmare to get to, everybody has given up on that one. But we are just playing it by ear and we have a family week after Chile. It’s a plan in progress still.”

May’s return to the England XV versus Fiji resulted in him needing just nine minutes to end the backline try-scoring famine that stretched back to the 75th-minute in Cardiff last February when Ollie Lawrence scored. That was five full games and a bit on either side without an England back scoring a try.

“Attack is probably the hardest thing to coach,” reckoned May. “It probably takes the longest to get going. Defence can be a quick fix with attitude. Attack is a hard thing to coach.

"I experienced that at Gloucester last season, it can be a hard thing to coach and certainly probably with the team where Eddie (Jones) came undone post (2019) World Cup was really trying to get an attack going which for whatever reason we couldn’t.

“That was on all of us and when you are pursuing something else, you are spinning lots of plates with rugby and before you know it a couple of things you are not giving attention to can drop off as well. That was probably the case.

“We are still trying to get our attack going, we did score a few good tries against Fiji with the backs. We have the intent to move the ball, but we are still making too many errors. But it is improving, from internally we feel it growing and feel it improving and the messages from the coaches is that we want to be a smart team that attacks space whatever means that be.

“We are still a new team with combinations coming together; a week just in we’re up against time. We are up against time but all it takes is one game to click and then we’ll be off and that is the feeling we have got.”