May-day for opponents as Jonny just gets better

JONNY May’s move back to Kingsholm is great news for Gloucester fans because he would have to be in the reckoning for one of the wing shirts in any World XV. What strikes me is that he is the most improved player I’ve seen in the England squad. Over the last three seasons he has been right up there, and he tops the list ahead of Tom Curry and Sam Underhill.

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Rapid pace and anticipation: Jonny May scoring against France during this season’s Six Nations

Owen Farrell has always been a front-runner, but he has plateaued recently after about six years of constant improvement, while May just seems to stay on an upward curve.

May has been around for a while now, but it’s been great to watch him go from a player who seemed herethere-everywhere, with not much idea of what he was doing outside catching the ball and running quickly, into one of the outstanding finishers in the game.

Earlier in his career there were times when he looked quite lost, and he was not a player with a natural reading of the game, or a strong tactical instinct. However, he has worked hard to develop those areas, and in the four years between the 2015 to 2019 World Cups there will not be any opposing team England have played without a plan for stopping him.

The message from all of them will have been “we’ve got to shut this guy down quickly, because if we don’t we will struggle to catch him”.

You can see just how much of a threat May is most clearly when someone like George Ford, Elliot Daly or Farrell puts through a kick which initially just looks as if it might be quite a good territory gain. Then you see May on the edge of the picture, and he turns it into a try because of his rapid pace and needle-sharp anticipation.