England’s Jonny May reveals how he lost his rag with Steve Borthwick and almost walked out of Rugby World Cup camp

Tucked away in a shady corner of England’s training base at Le Touquet, occasionally scratching the mosquito bites on his legs, Jonny May explains how he lost his rag to Steve Borthwick last month.

The dust has now settled, but there was a moment when the winger nearly walked out of camp. It wasn’t long after the birth of his first child, Jaxon, when he got a heads up early on that he wasn’t in the original World Cup squad.

“The truth is that Steve spoke to me the Monday before we played Wales and said that in the current form you don’t play at the weekend and you’re not in the 33,” says May.

‘That’s why my monkey fell out, I’ll be honest. I thought, “Well, what am I doing here this week?”

“I reacted angrily but rationally. I went to the gym for 10 minutes and then stomped back to him and said I needed another talk. I said, ‘I’m managing this through you, because I may not want to be here this week. Why am I here? I have my son at home”.

Borthwick told winger May he would not be involved in the country’s World Cup squad

But after Anthony Watson’s injury, May started the warm-up match against Fiji and scored a try

“He said he didn’t want me to go home because I was next and it wouldn’t look good if I stopped now and then had to be called up again. I thought, ‘Fair enough, good point. Just calm down and carry on.”’

A few weeks later, after a brutal twist in Anthony Watson’s injury fate, May was called up for the warm-up match against Fiji. He scored eight minutes into the game, ending a six-hour try drought for the England backs and booking his place in the final tour group.

“Things have turned around,” he says. ‘Obviously I’m crazy about Anthony; it’s a cruel game sometimes, you learn that as you get older. Cruel in two ways: you can’t get picked and you can get hurt.”

Plans changed quickly. May ordered tickets and accommodation for his young family last week and then headed to France, where he showed a sense of relief as the team soared from the cauldron of criticism that had bubbled over England’s disastrous summer.

“I wrote in my notebook that it’s a new chapter now, and I’ve turned a nice, clean page,” he says. “We have had a lot to deal with in recent months: disappointing results, injuries, suspensions.

“You feel that pressure from outside, whether it be ex-players, media or social media. You feel the vultures circling. That’s the world we live in. There was a lot to see.

‘You see it with politicians when they do something slimy, but all we are trying to do here is do our utmost. We understand the frustration and share it. I’m devastated, but the bad things are what I find difficult to understand.’

The odds are great against England. Mei knows that. He has played 76 times for his country and four years ago the mood couldn’t be further from expectations.

“We went into the last World Cup with a lot of results and preparation behind us,” he says. “To begin with, we knew roughly what the team was.

‘There was much more certainty. This time we are definitely the underdog. We’re still finding our way, we’re still finding our team, we’re still discovering ourselves.

“All you can do is turn it into something positive. Expectations are low. That’s quite refreshing in some ways because we know we can be much better than we’ve been.’

The first is Argentina on Saturday night, when May (left) could line up against some of his Gloucester teammates.

“They stay in the fight,” he says. “It’s a game that spans the whole distance. They’re favourites. We just have to play the cards we have and make it a good hand.’