‘Everyone judges on the outcome’ – Leo Cullen defends Leinster decision to go to the corner in Ulster defeat

At the time, the visitors were leading by a point and it was well within Harry Byrne’s range, but James Ryan and his leadership group opted to kick to touch and trust their maul.

Ulster defended the drive, before Tom Stewart won a key turnover and that led to John Cooney winning the game with a long-range penalty at the death.

The loss means Leinster are now unlikely to finish above third in the URC and it is likely to cost them a Croke Park semi-final and final if they get that far.

“Listen, feel of the game. The players were out there,” Cullen said of the decision.

“I don't mind that much, maybe if it's a knockout game it's different because you can go for a four-try bonus point, there's other factors at play today versus a final. “I don't mind that, everyone judges on the outcome sometimes, but when you're in the moment, you can score a fourth try and get a bonus point, go eight points in front and I wouldn't get bogged down in it.”

A week out from the Champions Cup final against Toulouse, Cullen was deflated by how Leinster had let the game slip.

However, the return to fitness of James Ryan and Hugo Keenan, who both managed 80 minutes, was a bonus.

“Frustrating. I thought there was a lot of good effort in the game,” he said of the 23-21 loss.

“We had a plenty of chances, we were ahead right until the very end so, listen, there's probably good learning in how we manage some of that last 20 minutes.

“We had plenty of opportunities, we had them in the far corner, the maul is going forward well and we give away the penalty.

“We had some other opportunities as well, anyway it's just a frustrating game.

“You couldn't fault the effort, the effort was great, it's positive getting some guys back who hadn't played for a while.

“So, they got through some decent time.

“It was great to get ourselves in a good position, but we need to be better in terms of how we execute certain things.

“From an attack point of view, in the first half we made life difficult for ourselves with some of our exits, didn't we? It puts us under pressure.

“Credit to Ulster, they created some good opportunities in the first half and our scramble was good, they weren't really down our end in the second half, were they?

“(Jacob) Stockdale goes the length of the field with the intercept, other than that there wasn't many opportunities that they had down there.

“I thought we were quite dominant in the second half, but we didn't quite push home the advantage we had. That's the frustration. Probably a lot of good lessons for next week.

“Credit to Ulster, they fought hard and nailed the kick at the end.

“Jubilation and dejection on the other side, unfortunately we're in that camp.”

Leinster lost Charlie Ngatai and Tommy O’Brien to first half injuries, while Brian Deeny also went off with a knock, but crucially Ryan, Keenan and Will Connors all got through the game.

“We didn't know how the game was going to unfold, so Scott (Penny) came on for Will. Brian took a bang on the shoulder, so that's why he had to come off and, with the juggling of some of the backs with Cormac playing 45 minutes on the wing, we had Sam last and didn't know what the best thing was to do,” he said.

“Harry was starting to cramp, ideally we might have got the lads off earlier but they got through 80 and they'll get a bit of confidence from that.

“Charlie got a bang on the shoulder, we'll see how he is. Tommy pulled up with his hamstring, we took him off before it got worse so we'll see how he is.”