There is a lot about Jonny May that people do not know. His team-mates may be unaware, for instance, that his mother, Hazel, is a well-regarded occupational therapist who has written books about dementia. Or that, in the Gloucester wing’s opinion, there may be a bit of Fijian in him: “We’ve a bit of an odd family tree. My dad was adopted and we have a picture of my great gran and she looks like a Pacific Islander. We don’t really know where she was from but I joke about having a bit of islander in me with the islanders at the club.”
Welcome to the wonderful if sometimes wacky world of English rugby’s fastest man. How many other international sportsmen would freely admit to spending their long months of rehabilitation completing Harry Potter colouring-in books? Or opt to listen to the theme tune to Disney’s Frozen on the matchday bus to Twickenham? Or nip off for a pee during a team meeting because he mistakenly thought the coaches were discussing tactics that did not involve him?
Small wonder that May, the quickest 26-year-old in kindergarten, causes his team-mates so much amusement. “It is hard to say why but I am probably a little bit of a different character in the group,” he concedes, frowning momentarily. “I don’t know how to describe myself but I am a thoughtful person. When I’m deep in thought people probably wonder: ‘Is he thinking about a lot or not a lot?’ It is probably a combination.
“I am just trying to get better and to be my best. Everyone has different ways of doing that. I’ve always had a belief inside that I can set my own limits and achieve what I want to achieve – and that’s playing for England and starting for whatever team I play in. I’ve always taken it a step at a time but believed I can get there.”
Right there, one suspects, is the reason why May, rather than some steady Eddie, is lining up on his country’s wing. His personal road to Twickenham has been far from smooth and a serious knee injury last year would have snapped most people’s resolve. May went straight out to buy his own specialist rehab equipment – as well as a colouring book – to make sure he could treat himself with an ice compression device for 12 hours a day. Amid all the mirth he frequently generates, there also lurks an obsessive streak. “My wife and I always felt the potential was there,” his father Peter, a cattle vet, once told the Guardian. “This is what he was meant to do.”
A decade ago, though, even county recognition was elusive. A late developer at Wootton Bassett RFC, May had big hands and could outsprint his schoolmates but, aged 15, everyone else was a foot taller. In frustration he took himself off to Hartpury College in Gloucestershire, enrolling for a BTech in sport (“or something along those lines”) that did not involve much file opening. “It was a risk as a 16-year-old because they didn’t do A-levels at the time,” he says. “But I thought: ‘Let’s go for it.’ It was rugby for breakfast, rugby for lunch ... training, gym, skills, two games per week. It was awesome and the making of me.”
Gloucester spotted him playing sevens and the rest is fast-forward history. In his past 13 Tests for England at Twickenham he has contributed eight tries, with memories of his fabulous solo effort against New Zealand in 2014 still vivid. Last year, though, was bleaker. A knee reconstruction – “It was a pretty nasty injury” – forced him to sit out England’s Six Nations Grand Slam and watch as others prospered in Australia last summer. Had Anthony Watson not pulled a hamstring at training in Portugal last week, the Bath man might have featured against France instead. May knows the score: for every door that opens, another slams shut on a rival’s fingers.
Yet, finally, the maverick’s maverick (even his birthday is on April Fools’ Day) can sense his luck changing. In his mind, 2017 has long been circled in red. “Given the year I had last year, I always thought this could be my year.” Among other things he has been looking at ways of reducing his stress levels before games, as well as working with the vision specialist Sherylle Calder: “If someone said, ‘Try to hold your breath for an hour to get better,’ I’d give it a go.”
There is certainly scope to improve his scrummaging, with his cack-handed efforts as an emergency flanker against Argentina having caused widespread internet merriment. “Luckily we won that scrum!” he laughs now. “I didn’t really want to disturb the second row and wasn’t really sure what I was doing. That’s quite evident, isn’t it?” So what about the story of him disappearing to the loo just as Jones was explaining how his backs should execute their running lines off nine? “I was desperate and thought: ‘They might not notice if I go during this part of it.’ Eddie was commentating: ‘Jonny has got the ball, he is going to go down the line ...’ Then he was like: ‘Er, where’s Jonny?’ Everyone was looking around as I walked in trying to be subtle. Luckily Eddie found it funny. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a telling off.”
Good old Jonny. Sadly there is no time left to discuss his impending wedding to Sophie in July or delve deeper into the tale of how he used to play football in the garden with Ed Sheeran, whose godmother is a good friend of his mother’s. As for touring with the Lions – “It would be a dream come true to be involved in something like that” – all that matters for now is that England hit the Six Nations running. It says February on the calendar but this could be the month of May.
