Felipe Contepomi is backing James Lowe to bounce back from his Test slump - but says criticism comes with the job as a winger.
Lowe's defending has come under the spotlight as he has cost Ireland a number of tries in his debut Six Nations.
The excitement that greeted his try-scoring debut against Wales in the Autumn Nations Cup has evaporated.
"He's a guy that tries to get better and I will definitely back him up," said Contepomi, who works closely with Lowe at provincial level as Leinster's attack coach.
"But I've heard before (Jacob) Stockdale also being criticised...we would definitely like Ireland to have the best wing defenders, but that's also the life of a winger.
"Everyone gives them praise when they have the ball and move forward then they have to make sure they don't make easy mistakes in defence because they're going to be criticised.
"It's part of their life, you know, the winger's life."
Looking in from the outside, Contepomi can see that the Ireland defensive system differs from the one employed by Leinster.
"Sometimes for players it's hard to change from one set-up to the other and be very cohesive in that system," he said.
"Now, it's not an excuse. If you're an international player, you have to be able to do that. That's the way it is.
"In terms of his defence, his individual technique and so on, James Lowe is not renowned for his defensive attributes.
"He's more renowned for ball-in-hand moving forward, so definitely it won't be his best part of the game.
"But he has been good enough with us. Definitely there are things to work on, but it's not only with James.
"There are many other players that we keep on working on polishing that technique and understanding and performing within our system."
Although Lowe looked on Sunday like a player who has lost confidence, Contepomi doesn't believe that's the case.
"He's quite a relaxed guy in terms of always being very confident in himself," he explained. "I don't know if that's the problem.
"International level is a different level and he's experiencing that for the first time in the last four or five months, so it's never going to be easy and a straightforward thing.
"Maybe the expectations were very high, I don't know, but you need to give him time to get things right and experience it.
"Sometimes it's not about making errors because everyone makes errors, it's how you bounce back from them.
"I'm sure he is going to work really hard on them and will bounce back properly and be the player everyone wants him to be."
