New Wales call-up Sam Costelow celebrated his autumn international squad selection by leading a kids' rugby training session just hours after the career milestone.
Costelow, 21, discovered he had been called up for Wales' autumn internationals by email on Tuesday morning, a few hours before the public learned the make-up of Wayne Pivac's 35-player squad. The uncapped Pencoed product had time to give his proud parents Simon and Louise a quick phone call before getting straight into Scarlets business as they prepare for a tough URC trip to Connacht on Friday night.
Appearing before journalists on media duty on Tuesday afternoon, a thrilled yet relaxed Costelow hadn't had a chance to even check his phone for messages, but spoke of his ambition to make his family proud and catch up with his grandparents. But all catching up was on hold, as Costelow had a prior engagement to fulfil: coaching Trimsaran juniors in their Tuesday evening session.
The engagement, a long-standing tradition between the Scarlets and local clubs, had been pencilled in for a while, with players heading out on club visits every Monday and Tuesday for a block of the season to get involved at a kids' training session
Speaking ahead of the Trimsaran visit, Costelow — who regularly goes on family trips to watch Wales in Cardiff with his dad and grandfathers Terry and Philip — said of his Wales squad selection: "It's class. I was over the moon when I saw the email, a brilliant feeling. I found out through email and I rung my mum and my dad, I didn't know who to ring first! They were over the moon. They know how much it means to me and hopefully I've made them proud.
"My family are there for me all the time, I just want to hopefully make them proud. They always come down to the Scarlets games and they also drove up to Leicester for even a school game. They're always following me."
Costelow was invited in to train with Wales ahead of their summer tour to South Africa, but this time will be heading in as a senior player in his own right.
"It's every boy's dream to play for Wales. I've just got to go in there and work hard and try and be a sponge, try and learn as much as I can. It's obviously going to be a step up but a challenge I'm looking forward to."
Wales feedback from the summer saw Costelow focus more on his already astute tactical kicking. "I need to get consistency in my restarts and place-kicking and obviously my out-of-hand kicking, and my overall game, looking at defences, a lot of it was picking up as much as I could."
Having been earmarked as a future Test star due to his impressive Wales U20s outings, Costelow was in the Ospreys U16s set-up before moving to the East Midlands to join Leicester and attend Oakham School aged 16. He spent time on loan at Ampthill and also broke through into the seniors, before heading to Scarlets for the 2020/21 season.
With two seasons in Llanelli now under his belt, Costelow has blossomed into a well-rounded player so far but his thirst for improvement is never far away.
"I'm still making errors and stuff but my biggest learning is overall kicking game and how to run an attack, trying to build the kicking game and game management. That's the biggest thing that Dwayne has been on to me about, game management and when you're on top of sides, how to stay on top."
Also a strong defender with a clever running game, it is this never-ceasing desire to improve which leads Scarlets head coach Dwayne Peel to describe Costelow as "intense".
"He's a great guy to work with, really receptive of feedback, criticism, plaudits," the former Wales and Lions scrum-half said. "He wants to get better every week. He's an intense player. He's craving getting better every day, and sometimes I've been on his case that he needs to enjoy it as well. He wants it so bad.
"But he's worked so hard for us. There are areas of the game where I think he knows he can get better at, but he's a real threat with the ball in hand and he's shown that this year, he's led well. He's still a young kid and that's the thing we need to remember, he's growing his trade. He's a pleasure to work with."
Costelow smiles as some of Peel's comments are relayed to him, admitting: "Dwayne's always on to me [to enjoy it], you've got to enjoy what you do. I find that when I just play with my instincts and I'm happy, that's when I play my best rugby. That's what he's telling me to do.
"When we're here I'm pretty full on, I want to be as good as I can and try and do everything I can in the week in my prep to perform on the weekend. I've been working with Dale Thomas [sports psychologist]. It has been a case of 'yeah, do everything you can while you're here to prep for the weekend but as soon as you are in the house, it's obviously going to be there but you've got to switch off'. My family and my girlfriend, we're all just trying to switch off when I get home, go for walks, playing PlayStation or whatever it is, I'm just trying to switch off."
As for what he brings to the fly-half position, he says: "I like to think I can attack the line as a 10, I bring other players with me, and I'm just trying to keep that game management as well, because sometimes it might not be on for me to go at the line, sometimes you're going to have to ball-play as well. I watch quite a lot of rugby, I try and learn as much as I can from every 10 in the English Prem or obviously our league as well. I try and pick up loads of little things."
READ NEXT:
The verdict on Wales' shock new call-ups and how they've done it
Will Rowlands ruled out of Wales captaincy mix as Sam Warburton backs contender
The real reasons gutted Wales players weren't picked as World Cup hopes in major jeopardy
Wales players warned 'unacceptable' off-field behaviour will not be tolerated on international duty
