Wales rugby star’s touching gesture as teammate watches nightmare unfold

Wales star Nick Tompkins showed his class with a small yet powerful gesture to teammate Sam Costelow after his pass was intercepted for Argentina to score a try to effectively seal a Los Pumas semi-final. With Wales chasing the game in the final quarter, Nicolas Sanchez intercepted a Costelow pass to sprint away to score and then added a late penalty to rub salt in the wounds and send Warren Gatland’s side home due to being on the wrong side of a 29-17 scoreline.

As Costelow watched Sanchez race away for the try in what would have been a very difficult personal moment, ITV cameras caught Tompkins heading straight over to put his arm around the young fly-half and give him words of encouragement.

The 22-year-old half-back had earlier replaced Tompkins amid a backline reshuffle when he exited the field for a head injury assessment, which he passed. Costelow stayed on when Tompkins returned, with the inured Dan Biggar departing.

Wales head coach Warren Gatland later said in his post-match press conference that he hoped Costelow would not dwell on the incident. “It’s a rugby incident, you just can’t dwell on that,” he said. “Probably, you look at the options and they’ve defended quite narrow in that situation. We’ve practised that situation and in fairness to Argentina, they have read that