The Arsenal defender wasn’t named in Gareth Southgate’s initial squad for the game due to his potential involvement in the Gunners team for Saturday’s FA Cup Final with Hull City.
But when the 21-year-old wasn’t part of the matchday squad at Wembley, he was allowed by Gunners boss Arsene Wenger to come and link up with the Three Lions after their extra-time victory.
Wales U21s v England U21s
UEFA European U21 Championship
Group One qualifier
7.30pm, Monday 19 May 2014
Liberty Stadium, Swansea
Live on Sky Sports
It means missing out on an open-top bus tour around north London on Sunday afternoon, but for Jenkinson there was no doubt about what he wanted to do.
"England’s England and I said to the gaffer that I wanted to play for England this week," he admitted.
"Of course it meant missing the victory parade, but hopefully there will be plenty more of those to come in the future.
"I’ve played up until this point in the campaign with England and I didn’t want to miss this game.
"I’ve been a part of the squad and every game at this level is a good opportunity for me to play another game and show what I can do.
"The gaffer knew my thoughts on coming here, I wanted to come up and play against Wales so I’m looking forward to it."
Jenkinson, who will only be with England for the Wales game and not for the Toulon Tournament in France due to age restrictions, arrived at St. George’s Park late on Saturday evening before seeing his squad-mates for the first time at breakfast on Sunday.
And there were plenty of congratulations in store for the former Charlton Athletic youngster before it was off to training ahead of the journey to South Wales in the afternoon.
"It was an amazing day and I can’t really put into words what it meant to me and to the club and I think you could tell by the reaction after what it meant to everyone," he added.
Jenkinson was with the Arsenal squad for their FA Cup Final victory
"It was an incredible day and one of those I’ll never forget.
"We nearly shot ourselves in the foot until Santi [Cazorla] scored at a magnificent time and changed the whole dynamic of the game.
"After we got the first one, I was always confident that we’d get another and it was a bit of a roller-coaster as we had to do it the hard way.
"But we’ve done it many times before this season when we’ve come from behind and we’ve got that resilience and character to do it."
England will now be looking to end this season’s Euro qualifiers on a high with a win over neighbours Wales at the Liberty Stadium, which will further cement their place at the top of their group.
The sides last met in March at Derby County’s iPro Stadium when England narrowly won by 1-0 and Jenkinson still recalls the match so knows the Three Lions can expect another tricky encounter.
"When we played them at Derby, that was a tough game and we knew that they were a decent side but they surprised us with how good they were on the night," he revealed.
"We know it’s not going to be easy at all and that we’re in for another tough game but we’re confident that if we play the football we’re capable of we can get the result that we need."
