Leeds Rhinos' Harry Newman is setting his sights on a full England cap

The 19-year-old’s rapid rise will continue tomorrow when he makes his England Knights debut against Jamaica at Emerald Headingley (3pm).

Newman has emerged as one of the European game’s most exciting emerging talents and the one-off Test will complete a remarkable year of progress.

He played for England academy when they whitewashed Australian Schoolboys in a two-Test series last December and said: “It was great to experience that, but now this is a step towards making my full England debut.

“A goal of mine at the beginning of the year was to make the Knights and I have achieved that so I am really excited.”

Newman was the first player born this century to appear in Super League when he made his Rhinos debut two years ago.

He lit up the Betfred Championship last year during a dual-registration spell with Featherstone Rovers and, after beginning the campaign as a fringe player, became one of Rhinos’ first-choice centres in 2019.

“I am really happy with how this season has gone,” the Super League young player of the year said.

“At the start of the year, the first few games, I was 18th man and really eager to push for a spot in the Leeds side.

“I played regular Super League at the back end of the year and that has helped me to get where I am now.

“I played regularly for Featherstone the year before so it’s just step by step really, taking each season as it comes and I’ve just got to progress, kick on next season at Leeds and cement that spot.”

It is more than a month since Leeds’ season ended, but Newman insisted: “We’ve still been training hard.

“I missed the last game of the season with a hamstring injury so I’ve been recovering from that.

“I’ve done all my re-hab, been in the gym working hard and a bit of running and training with England over in Manchester as well.

“We get a couple of weeks off [after tomorrow], but then we’ll all be back in and working hard.

“We’ve got to make sure we do that after the season we’ve had, so we do better next season.”

Rhinos have been in a relegation battle in three of the past four campaigns, but Newman insists they will be competing at the right end of the table in 2020.

“You only have to look at the back end of this year,” he said. “Since Rich [Agar] came in he has done a great job, there’s good morale in the squad and everyone’s working hard to get back to where we need to be.

“I think come the start of the season we will be a lot better than we were that time last year. I am really excited for 2020.”

Tomorrow’s game is part of both nations’ build-up to the 2021 World Cup.

Newman said: “It’s our home pitch, the club I play for, a great venue and hopefully we’ll get a packed crowd. I’m really looking forward to it.

“Jamaica have got a decent squad and some Super League players in there, the likes of Ashton [Golding] who I have been training with for the last two years. I know he is a great competitor. He will be looking forward to running out at Headingley again.

“Then they’ve got the likes of Michael Lawrence and Ben Jones-Bishop so they have got some experience in there, but we have just got to focus on ourselves. We’ve worked hard this week, all the lads have been great and if we just work hard and put what we’ve been working on into practice on the field we should get the job done.”

Rhinos’ Callum McLelland has been named in Scotland’s squad to take on Serbia in Glasgow next Saturday, along with new Wakefield Trinity signing Alex Walker.

Wakefield’s George King, Michael Ward (Batley Bulldogs) and Martyn Reilly (Dewsbury Rams) are in the Ireland squad to face Spain in Valencia the same afternoon.

Both games are qualifiers for the 2021 World Cup.