Jonny May magic inspires England past Ireland in Autumn Nations Cup victory

England continued their recent stranglehold over Ireland to put one foot in the Autumn Nations Cup final thanks to two moments of magic from Jonny May in a one-sided 18-7 victory.

The wing became England’s all-time second top try-scorer to draw alongside Ben Cohen and Will Greenwood with two efforts in a first half of the highest class, taking the Gloucester back to 31 tries in his 58 England appearances.

The remaining eight points all came from the boot of Owen Farrell in what proved the fourth consecutive dominant display over the Irish, following their back-to-back Six Nations wins and record victory in last year’s Rugby World Cup warm-up clash, with the only negative for the home side coming in that they allowed Ireland to score in the 74th minute through a Jacob Stockdale try, ending any hopes of going two consecutive 80-minute performances without conceding a point.

The victory puts England five points clear at the top of Group A with only Wales to play next weekend, with a place in the Autumn Nations Cup final a near-certainty unless their old rivals can pull off the biggest of upsets in Llanelli next weekend.

The sense of deja vu for Ireland must have felt horrific. Andy Farrell’s side were comprehensively bettered at the breakdown, the scrum and lineout, and yet again could not handle England’s tactical kicking that provided the platform for their attack. This could have been Dublin in February 2019 or Twickenham earlier this year, as the similarities in the way Ireland were dominant were all too familiar.

READ MORE: Autumn Nations Cup fixtures and results

Though the first quarter nearly passed by without any scoring of note, there were no doubts over who was in the ascendancy. “I’m liking this boys!”, “more of the same lads” and “they can only catch it at the front!” were all overheard on the referee’s microphone, but cheerleaders-in-chief Maro Itoje and Kyle Sinckler weren’t wrong. Ireland’s lineout was a mess, so much so that Iain Henderson at one stage received instructions on the sidelines in anticipation he would be needed in the opening quarter.

Henderson’s introduction didn’t come, but the tries certainly did and they did so from England’s main try-scoring threat over the last six years in the form of May.

Twenty-one months ago England did a number on Ireland in the Six Nations with their tactical kicking, which produced errors in the Irish back-field and produced two tries and the start of their run of form towards the World Cup final. It did for Ireland again in February when England forced Ireland into errors that cost tries, and it happened again here. England signalled their intent by sending two early penalty efforts to touch rather than take long-distance shots at goal, and after a cagey opening 18 minutes they struck the first devastating blow. They attempted to set up the lineout maul that inflicted so much damage on Georgia last week, but the ball was dropped by Billy Vunipola and they had to quickly reset. However, Cian Healy’s eagerness off the line gave Farrell a free play and he sent a high cross-field kick for May to challenge for. In truth, the wing had a whole lot of ground to make up and had no right to claim the ball ahead of Hugo Keenan, but he did just that and rode the tackle of James Lowe to touch down and open the scoring.

The score was one of quality, but it had nothing on what he did three minutes later. Ireland looked to respond immediately as Kyle Sinckler gave away a needless penalty for blocking the chasers off Jamison Gibson-Park’s box-kick, but when Ross Byrne opted for touch they knocked the lineout on into English hands and the counter-attack was on. Despite being deep inside their own 22, the ball was shipped through the hands of Ollie Lawrence and Henry Slade to May, though with Daly for company and two defenders to beat it hardly looked ‘on’. The 30-year-old is the type of player who can conjure something out of nothing though, and he did just that, stepping in-and-out to leave Chris Farrell flummoxed and breaking upfield to beat Bundee Aki for good measure. He elected to kick up field rather than pass to Daly outside him, but it paid off handsomely as he breezed past Gibson-Park and recollected possession on the try line to score his second inside three minutes.

Farrell’s conversion put England 12 points to the good, but at least Ireland were having their moments. They very nearly scored when Gibson-Park broke on the blindside to pass inside to Keith Earls, who beat Daly too easily but was hauled down short by May. Ireland recycled quickly, but Billy Vunipola managed to secure a crucial turnover to release the pressure.

England kept their try line in touch through to half-time, and afterwards they took a far more pragmatic approach as they tightened their stranglehold on the game. They were gifted three points by the intervention of Television Match Official Nigel Owens, who advised Pascal Gauzere to penalise Quinn Roux for a fairly tame challenge on Tom Curry to clear him out the way of the breakdown. Farrell made no mistake from the tee in the 45th minute, and punished Irish captain Ryan for diving off his feet seven minutes later with another three points to extend the lead to 18.

It then became a question not of who would win, but whether both teams would actually score. Thankfully for Ireland they did, with replacement fly-half Billy Burns introduced and immediately injecting some pace into the game with a chip over the defence catching them napping and allowing fellow substitute Jacob Stockdale to collect and beat scrum-half Dan Robson, before utilising all of his pace to stay out of the clutches of Max Malins and score the consolation.

Burns converted from in front of the posts, but the result was way beyond doubt by that point.

Teams

England: Elliot Daly; Jonathan Joseph (Max Malins, 73), Ollie Lawrence (George Ford, 69), Henry Slade, Jonny May; Owen Farrell, Ben Youngs (Dan Robson, 63); Mako Vunipola (Ellis Genge, 63), Jamie George (Tom Dunn, 80), Kyle Sinckler (Will Stuart, 69); Maro Itoje, Joe Launchbury (Jonny May, 69); Tom Curry, Sam Underhill (Ben Earl, 63), Billy Vunipola.

Ireland: Hugo Keenan (Jacob Stockdale, 58); Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Bundee Aki, James Lowe; Ross Byrne (Billy Burns, 69), Jamison Gibson-Park (Conor Murray, 51); Cian Healy (Finlay Bealham, 66) Ronan Kelleher (Rob Herring, (51), Andrew Porter; Quinn Roux (Iain Henderson, 51), James Ryan; CJ Stander (Will Connors, 66), Peter O’Mahony, Caelan Doris.

Replacements not used: John Ryan.