England’s Jonny May is confident of his side’s future prospects after registering a third successive Guinness Six Nations victory over Wales last weekend.
After suffering defeat to France in the opening weekend of the Championship, England bounced back with successes over Scotland and Ireland, before Saturday’s 33-30 win over Wayne Pivac’s side at Twickenham.
May has been an integral part of those victories, as well as being a key member of Eddie Jones’ squad in recent years, but still believes the best is yet to come from the team.
“This group is such a special team, I can’t imagine being involved with a more hard-working and talented group,” said the Leicester Tigers back.
“This squad is so tight and the management group has been brilliant in helping us.
“We take it one week at a time and try to get better. We haven’t quite reached our pinnacle yet.”
After notching a brace of tries in the Round 1 defeat in Paris, May sits fifth on England’s top try-scorers list with 29 in his international career to date, but the winger denies having an eye on the record charts when he plays.
“The try record is a funny one,” acknowledges May. “It’s like a flip of a coin if you score a try in a game; sometimes you can get tails ten times in a row so I try and not get hung up on scoring.
“When I’m out there, I’m fully in the moment. Of course, there are distractions, but I try to keep on top of it.
“Every team we play, I show them as much respect as I can. Around 90% of what I do is about the team, which I think is the best way to prepare.”
With England possessing an array of talent across the back three, the 29-year-old is fully aware of the pressure in representing his country, having done so consistently for the past six years.
But instead of seeing his teammates as competition for a starting place, May believes the whole squad can learn from one another and help each other’s game.
He continued: “The further I go down this rugby journey, the pressure gets higher. It can be difficult and uncomfortable but that’s the price I have to pay because I want to be part of this team more than anything.
“Working consistently hard is the way to improve because we don’t always have the opportunity to train relentlessly with the number of games we play.
“We have so many good back-three players. In our unit, which includes Anthony Watson, Elliot Daly, Ollie Thorley, Jack Nowell and Joe Cokanasiga, it is not a case of competing against each other.
“We’re not going to be better than what some of these guys are best at, but I’ve learned a lot from playing with these guys and hopefully I’ve helped them in return.”
