Up and coming star Jy Simpkin said it was a ‘no-brainer’ when North Melbourne tabled a two-year extension.

The 21-year-old will remain at Arden St until at least the end of 2022, with the club’s exciting future making his decision to sign on an easy one.

“I’m really excited where the club’s heading with Shawry [Rhyce Shaw] as coach and the younger boys all sticking together and we get along really well,” Simpkin told North Media.

“I think the likes of Tarryn Thomas and Luke Davies [Uniacke], Cam Zurhaar, I think we’ve had four or five Rising Stars this year, so if we can keep that sort of core group together going forward in the future, anything is possible for the club.”

Simpkin has let his performances do the talking after being sent back to the VFL to regain form and confidence.

He recorded 30 disposals and 11 clearances in the Round 15 win over Collingwood, playing an instrumental role through the midfield. He backed it up the following week against St Kilda with a career-high 36 disposals.

Having started the season as a small forward, Simpkin said he is relishing the opportunity to play alongside the likes of Shaun Higgins, Ben Cunnington, Jed Anderson, Todd Goldstein and Jack Ziebell in North’s midfield.

“I do heaps of work with Higgo [Higgins] off-field and him teaching me, watching vision going through stuff, so if I can learn as much as I can off him and really start working like he does off the ball through the midfield it will help me a lot,” Simpkin said.

“Early on [in the season] I was playing small forward and wasn’t getting the rewards that I would’ve liked.

“Then probably more the second half of the season I really got my chance in the midfield and I’ve played some good games in the midfield. Now its just about getting that consistency to perform week-in, week-out so [I’m] looking forward to working on that and really cementing my spot in the midfield.”

Simpkin said playing on some of the competition’s elite on-ballers has also provided him with invaluable learnings.   

“I played on [Lachie] Neale for a half a couple of weeks ago then I played on [Tim] Kelly for a half on the weekend,” he said.

“Just seeing how they contest the footy and how they hunt the ball is a really big learning curve. I think sometimes when you don’t play as good as you’d like in games you look back and just watching how Tim Kelly goes about it, he just hunts the footy so well and coming off playing on him I’ll definitely learn a lot.”

Simpkin has played 54 games since his debut in Round 1, 2017. He was drafted from the Murray Bushrangers with pick 12 in the 2016 National Draft.