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England’s Jonny May named Guinness Man of the Match

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A first-half hat-trick helped England winger Jonny May claim the Guinness Man of the Match award as England powered past France 44-8.

A first-half hat-trick helped England winger Jonny May claim the Guinness Man of the Match award as England powered past France 44-8.

The Leicester Tigers flier showed his finishing prowess as he scored the first three of England’s six tries as they took the honours in Le Crunch.

It was the first hat-trick for England in the Guinness Six Nations since Jonathan Joseph’s against Scotland in the 2017 Championship.

May, 28, keeps up his stellar international form – with 12 tries in his last 12 Tests.

He took 66 seconds to open the scoring as he latched onto Elliott Daly’s grubber kick to dab down in the corner.

Just after the quarter mark he had a second, this time showing his feet to evade opposite number Damian Penaud to score in the same corner.

The winger completed his treble on 28 minutes, this time making the most of a Chris Ashton nudge behind the defensive line – racing through to touch down.

May almost had another in the second half as he chased Owen Farrell’s kick through but the pressure he put on Antoine Dupont meant he was unable to gather, so his fly-half was able to add the sixth try.

May said his side were just trying to raise the bar after last week’s win in Ireland.

He said: “The challenge was trying to raise the bar after good team performance last week but we came out and played really good rugby at times.

“I was just focused on doing my job but everybody is working hard and it’s really paying off. We’ve learned a lot in the last 12 months or so and worked incredibly hard.

“Scoring tries for your country is awesome, especially at Twickenham, so I’m really grateful and feel lucky.”