'O'Driscoll's punditry was very fair... it probably is somewhat unforgivable to have a mistake like that happen'
Jacob Stockdale believes the criticism of him by legendary fellow Irishman Brian O’Driscoll was justified after the Ulster player’s botched try-scoring attempt cost his province a Champions Cup quarter-final win over defending champions Leinster.
Ulster were beaten 21-18 in the knockout game in Dublin, but they had a chance to take control of the match when the winger raced through a pile of tackles when they were two points ahead.
However, carrying the ball one-handed instead of diving with both hands on the ball, he failed to ground it properly over the try line and the score was chalked off by referee Romain Poite following a TMO review.
O’Driscoll, who was commentating on the match for BT Sport, branded the error as “unforgivable” and Stockdale, who was rolled out to do Ulster media this week ahead of their PRO14 match against Edinburgh on Friday agreed.
“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.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvq9ERFhfD7/
“I think his punditry was very fair. You’re never going to agree 100 per cent with what somebody says about you but what he said was pretty fair,” said Stockdale, who apologised after the game to Ulster fans on his Instagram account
At the time of the incident O’Driscoll said: “It was brilliantly manufactured by Ulster and again he’d a fair bit of work to do but this unfortunately for Jacob Stockdale is unforgivable.
”When you find yourself over the whitewash, yes there’s a player dragging out of him looking to get a challenge in, but you’ve got to dive. You’ve got to guarantee the ball goes down.
“There’s a risk, and obviously the one that we’ve just seen, of knocking the ball on or losing it in contact. That does not happen, or at least tends to happen far less frequently, when you dive.”
"This, unfortunately for Jacob Stockdale, is unforgivable!"
"He'd done all the hard work, all he had to do was fall!"@BrianODriscoll and @StephenFerris6 weigh in on the moment that shifted the momentum of the whole game…
A cruel, cruel blow for Ulster. pic.twitter.com/851lr4WwkM
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) March 30, 2019
The failure to score hit Stockdale hard. “It was obviously an incredibly tough couple of days for me after that game,” he revealed. “I made a mistake, I made a pretty big mistake. I’ll probably play it over in my head thousands and thousands of times.
“I know everyone has said to me that it’s not true, but I feel it cost us a semi-final place. The amount of people that came down to watch us and the amount of people who paid money to come and watch us, for them not to come away celebrating a victory because I dropped the ball over the line, I just felt that I had to apologise and I had to accept it was my fault and I suppose it was a way of moving on, to say ‘look, I’m sorry and it’ll never happen again’.”
“The one thing that made it easier was the support I got,” he added. “That was the incredibly overwhelming thing and that gave me great respect for our fans. They were so kind of forgiving and were just like ‘mate, don’t worry about it’. That was really touching.”
"We've all been dealt some bad cards in rugby, but it's how you bounce back."
"He's going to be a top class player for many years to come and he won't make that mistake again."
Sam Warburton defends Jacob Stockdale after his costly mistake… pic.twitter.com/1eMNKlsP3l
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) April 2, 2019
Comments on RugbyPass
Dad Marty was also a handy rugby player for Linwood back in the day. Great bloke. Sensational softball career.
2 Go to commentsWhat ifs are always dangerous. If you look at the game before Sam cane got sent of SA was dominating. You could make the argument the going down to 14 men rallied the troops and made them have to play to win which is always dangerous.
129 Go to commentsOmg… you are bruised And battered Benny. Stop crying … the scoreboard speaks. What a pathetic lover you are.. 🤣🤣🤣
129 Go to commentsPacific Lions, cry me a river
129 Go to commentsThis is the single worst piece of journalism I have ever seen since your last one. As a neutral, who really states that there should be an asterisk next to a win? You are an utter embarrassment to real AB fans, journalism and that joke of a house which pays you for this nonsense. Get a life, Ben.
129 Go to commentsGuys. Cancel the World Cup champions after this analysis. It changes everything. Ben knows. We’ll have to unengrave the Bokke off the trophy and hand it to the ABs, now that I’ve been enlightened about this illegitimate win. This needs to be done. Now!
129 Go to commentsBen is right here though, Springboks were woefully poor with the advantage they had throughout this game. The France match was heroic because that was an even contest this match had it taken place in Rugby Championship would have been an easy win for NZ. If anything this match should tell the Bok coaches that a lot of this team should be changed. They beat this same NZ team by record margin with the same circumstances but with a different core. They bring back the tried and tested guys and they nearly botch this game.
129 Go to commentsI knew who wrote this article from the first few words in the headline…lol. The red card actually did the ABs a favour. It galvanized them, only then did they step up a gear. Before that there was zero momentum.
129 Go to commentsFirstly the foul on Bongi was a planned move just like the NZ master plan with Bryce Lawrence you kiwis are filthy fux perhaps try to play a cleaner game next time I doubt that’s possible tho but don’t worry world rugby is on yr side they trying to take away all the BOKS strengths to help all you weakling as Jeremy Clarkson would say LA OO ZA ERR..🤣
129 Go to commentsAbsolutely spot on Ben. I certainly wouldn't gloat over a win like that. Frustrating as it is it's done and dusted and history will forever show the result.
129 Go to commentsHo hum.
129 Go to commentsNo question they were the better team. But that is the beauty of sport isn’t it!
129 Go to commentsEveryone is into Hurling in Ireland according to Porter, but only 11 of Ireland's 32 counties enter a team into the national competition. Same old blarney.
1 Go to commentsLet’s be honest. The draw and scheduling in the World Cup was a joke but South Africa found a way after having to go the hard (nearly impossible) way to the Cup Final via France and England. NZ had a hard game against France (lost) and had 5 weeks to prepare for the Quarter, 3 weeks knowing it was Ireland. NZ theerfore had to win one big game against an Irish team who played SA and then Scotland 7 days before. They won and it was de facto a semi final because they were playing a relatively weak Argentina team and it was a walk over. In the final a very rested NZ team was playing a very tired SA team and still lost. They couldn’t score more than 11 points. Put another way SA had to find a way to win while tired and they achieved that. NZ should thank their lucky stars that they fixed the scheduling in 2015 otherwise they would be dealing with a Bok treble.
129 Go to commentsPerhaps if Bongi wasn’t targeted and removed from the game in the first 3 minutes it would have been quite a different game. Maybe if NZ also faced the same competition the Boks faced to their win NZ would have looked quite different. The final score shows who outplayed who.
129 Go to commentsRubbish article! Abuladze played most of Exeters matches when fit. He got injured against Glasgow a while ago and is out for the rest of the season, thats why he hasnt played for Exeter and Georgia recently. Do some proper research next time!
1 Go to commentsGotta love it when kids throw their toys out the pram and can’t hack it with the grown ups debate. Here’s looking at you turlough! 😉🤣
148 Go to commentsThey lost the game period move on
129 Go to commentsSpringboks won! Stop winging. You can change the game however much you and your rugby colonizing IRB want to and the Springboks will win you at that too. Your mind is colonized my friend get a life
129 Go to commentsBen, nobody gets fooled anymore by selective and biased data to support an hypothesis. Games are decided on such small margins these days that you win some and lose some, and dominance is a thing of the rugby past. Look at the RWC circle of fortune…. Ireland beats SA who beat France who beat NZ who beat Ireland. And so it goes on. Match officials help to eliminate real indiscretions. If they had been with us years before, no doubt results would have been different. Remember Andy Haden’s dive from a lineout in 1978 for which a match-wining penalty was awarded? Wales should have beaten the ABs that day. They took the loss like the gentlemen they were.
129 Go to comments