Sorry Stockdale admits mistake ‘unforgiveable’

Jacob Stockdale says he feels personally responsible for Ulster’s Champions Cup defeat by Leinster and, in an admission of incredible honesty, agreed with Brian O’Drisco ll’s damning post-match verdict that his missed try blunder was ‘unforgivable’.

The Ireland wing dropped the ball after crossing the line in the Aviva Stadium, failing to score what could have been a match-winning try in the recent quarter-final loss to the defending champions.

Stockdale apologised to the Ulster fans on social media and speaking publicly about it for the first time yesterday, insisted he had cost his team the game — and promised never to make the same mistake again.

“It was obviously an incredibly tough couple of days for me after that game,” he revealed.

“I made a pretty big mistake that, and I know everyone has said to me that it’s not true... but I feel it cost us a semi-final place.

It’s a mistake I’ll probably play over in my head thousands and thousands of times but the one thing that made it easier was the support I got.

“I put up the Instagram post just to say sorry and the comments and the support was incredible and overwhelming and I felt very humbled by that.”

Asked why he had felt the need to make a public apology the day after the game, Stockdale replied: “The amount of people who paid money to come down and watch us and for them not to come away celebrating a victory just because I dropped the ball over the line, I just felt that I had to apologise.

“I had to accept it was my fault. I suppose it was a way of moving on, to say ‘look, I’m sorry and it’ll never happen again’.

“I expected that some people would be nice, but that was the incredibly overwhelming thing and that gave me great respect for our fans, that they were so kind of forgiving and were just like ‘mate, don’t worry about it’. That was really, really touching.”

Former Leinster, Ireland and Lions centre Brian O’Driscoll wasn’t quite so understanding, labelling the mistake as ‘unforgivable’.

Scathing criticism like that from an Irish legend could have been hard to accept, but 22-year-old Stockdale has stood up and taken it.

“To be honest it doesn’t really bother me. Brian was an incredibly good player and he is a legend in the game and you know what, it probably is somewhat unforgivable to have a mistake like that happen in a game.

“I think his punditry was very fair to be honest. You’re never going to agree 100% with what somebody says about you, but what he said was pretty fair.

“It’s one of those things that nobody is ever going to question until something like that happens, and then all of a sudden everyone’s an expert in how to put the ball down.

“I’ve scored maybe five or six tries setting the ball down with one hand for Ireland and there’s never been a single comment on it.

“Obviously it’s easy to look in hindsight and say ‘you should never set the ball down with one hand’ but it’s one of those things that once somebody makes a mistake — and unfortunately it was me — it’s highlighted a lot more.”

Stockdale, who wants a PRO14 win over Edinburgh tomorrow to edge closer to his target of playing knockout rugby at Kingspan Stadium this season, admitted the error has forced him to change his approach.

“I’’ll definitely be diving for the next try, no doubt,” he added.