England Knights international Jack Walker has committed his future to Leeds Rhinos after signing a new five-year contract that will keep him at Emerald Headingley until at least the end of the 2023 Betfred Super League season.

The 19-year-old has put pen to paper on the new contract as he looks to build on a meteoric start to his professional career in the last two seasons. In 2017, he was called up to the Rhinos first team in his first year in the club’s academy, scoring a hat trick on debut before becoming the youngest player to lift the Super League trophy, aged 18 and 60 days, when he helped the Rhinos defeat Castleford Tigers in the Grand Final at Old Trafford.

He made 22 appearances in 2018 becoming the team’s starting full back, leading to him being given the number 1 shirt ahead of the 2019 season. The former Oulton Raider ended the 2018 campaign with a place in the England Knights squad for their tour to Papua New Guinea.

Commenting on the contract extension, Director of Rugby Kevin Sinfield said, “Jack is one of the most exciting talents in our game and I am delighted he has committed his long-term future to the Rhinos. The club have shown a great deal of faith in Jack throughout his time here and I am confident he can continue to develop and progress in the years ahead. We have an exciting crop of young players at the club, both in the first team set up and in the Academy ranks. The average age of the team at the Magic Weekend was just 24 with no player over 30 plus we also have eight members of the England Academy side that beat the Australian Schoolboys last December on our books, so the future is bright.”

Walker added, “We have been chatting about a new deal for a while and I am pleased we have come to an agreement now. We have got a great group of players coming through the club and even some of the senior players in the first team like Liam Sutcliffe and Ash Handley are still only young despite the amount of games they have already played.

“It is a great club and I am looking forward to the future. We have achieved some great things in the past and hopefully we can emulate that as a group. Kevin Sinfield has been great with me; he talks about us developing a winning mentality. It will take time as we build up game time together but, when we gel, I think we will be a formidable team in the years ahead. I played with a lot of these guys at academy level and that will make it special when things do click for us and we start winning some games,” added the Rhinos number one.