Jacob Stockdale was told by Rory Best he didn't owe anyone an apology for his crucial mistake last Saturday - but Best recognised Stockdale's need to address his Ulster colleagues.
Stockdale, 22, dropped the ball just before touching down for a vital try that could have changed the course of the Champions Cup quarter-final with Leinster.
“He was obviously gutted," recalled Best. "You do forget how young he is because of the level he has played at internationally for the last 18 months.
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“He said he wanted to address the squad in the changing-room. I said, ‘look, what about?’.
“He goes, ‘you know what about, the try', and I said, ‘I don’t think you’ve any need to. No player will expect you to apologise for that, but at the same time, if you feel you want to...'.
"And he wanted to. It's important that you let players express themselves.
“There’s no point in me telling him, ‘No, bottle it up, it doesn’t matter’. He got that out and we had a chat in the changing-room afterwards.
“Unfortunately, his game on Saturday will be remembered for that one moment but if you look at the battle that he had with Adam Byrne in the air...there's a scenario where Jacob scores that try and he's potentially man of the match, with the way he was playing.
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“He's going to have to learn - and it's a very very hard lesson to learn. There's also an argument to say that if we had won or lost by 30 points, would he have learned the same lesson?
"Maybe, maybe not. But knowing the way Jacob has been over the last while and how much he has improved – I wouldn't like to jinx him and say this will never happen again, but he'll be a lot more aware now and that will make him a better player in the end.
“He was gutted but, as Dan said afterwards, that happened on 44 minutes and there was still 36 minutes left in that half. Ultimately Leinster in that last five minutes showed the difference in where we are at the minute".
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