Last weekend was actually worse than it might normally have been mainly thanks to the early kick-off as essentially the most difficult time after a loss is when there just happen to be those extra hours to mull things over.
Yes, defeats hurt, sequences of them even more so and Michael Lowry is by no means alone when struggling to process and even shake off those dark thoughts and anxieties when things aren’t going so well.
It’s when things are quiet that it cuts the deepest, away from the group and when there is time to reflect and ponder on the way things went.
Last Saturday was a case in point. Ulster had ended up folding their tents to Bordeaux-Begles, surrendering the lead and 26 unanswered points at home with less than 20 minutes left on the clock.
It meant another loss, number four from four in fact. He left Ravenhill and headed home knowing what would follow in terms of not being able to park that gnawing and faintly nauseous feeling of not having completed the job, of finding it impossible to bin those mental pictures from what had happened and how maybe it shouldn’t have been this way.
Switching off? It’s not really part of Lowry’s psyche and he’s not alone with all the players putting themselves through the wringer when the scoreboard hasn’t been their friend.
It is then that the job enters that uncomfortable space of having failed to reach the intended target, of essentially damaging the overall cause.
“Really difficult, for me personally it’s really difficult to switch off,” admits Lowry.
“I don’t think necessarily it is a bad thing sometimes because we really care (so much) and when it doesn’t go your way you are obviously going to get criticism from people outside the environment.”
“That’s okay because everyone is entitled to an opinion but what matters is how the group reacts.”
“It can be quite difficult because (last) Saturday you play the game with an early kick-off and then all night you are thinking about the game.
“’I could have done this and or have done that, what if we did this’,” he explains of what sounds like a tortuous post-match routine when things haven’t gone well.
There hasn’t been much reason to smile for Michael Lowry and Ulster recently
Inevitably, he gravitates towards the laptop, a task he would have to do anyway with reviewing the game just gone and previewing work to be done for the next one. Yes, but after a loss this is all-consuming, an obsession really.
“Then Sunday you are watching the game again then you are reviewing the game again watching video clips and then you are previewing on Monday for the Munster game coming up, so you don’t really switch off too much,” he says.
“It is definitely easier when you win, you can review quickly and you are happy.
“When you lose it is like nearly the end of the world for me.”
Recently, then, he has not been in a particularly good place. But he’s not been alone as the Ulster squad gather themselves and prepare for two must-win festive interprovincials before the rather forbidding looking trip to Leicester Tigers for round three of the Champions Cup comes at them.
Trying to put some context into what has been happening he says: “There have been a lot of different combinations (in the teams), there are a lot of injuries at the minute, and it is the time of the year where there is a lot of contract talk, so it is about keeping the morale when you have not got the results you wanted.”
“If we got that result against Leinster (in last month’s previous round the URC), it is a completely different mood,” says the 26-year-old.
“It is crazy as when you win, and you don’t play well, you still feel in an alright mood.”
And turning to playing at this time of year, Christmas coming either side of games and therefore not really featuring as heavily for players with schedules to follow, Lowry adds: “They (interprovincials) are always brilliant games, they are nearly always sold out, and there is a good atmosphere.
“(They are) tough battles and it makes or breaks your Christmas so hopefully it will make it this week.”
Lowry has put in four 80-minute performances in Ulster’s recent games so he has certainly been up close and personal with the run of losses.
“I think it is really important that everyone gets behind the team and that we can show something on the pitch and get the crowd behind us, it works both ways,” he says.
“We love playing in front of the home crowd it’s brilliant and as you can see from the Joey Carbery clip (Bordeaux’s out half gestured to the crowd last Saturday after striking a conversion), we do get the best support in terms of being hostile.
“I’m not sure many teams enjoy coming here,” he states which is a reasonable point even though Ravenhill is by no means the fortress it once was.
One scenario which he does reflect on with genuine bon homie is the possibility of facing former Ulster teammate Billy Burns on Friday evening after the out half hooked up with Munster over the summer.
“It would be brilliant, I’d love to play against him,” he says of what might unfold in Belfast should Burns get the nod.
“We (the squad) were chatting about what is Billy going to bring in terms of is he going to give you a bit of chat or is he going to be serious in the game.
“We all love Billy he is a great lad, so he’ll be interesting to play against but at the end of the day it is another game of rugby that we are out to win.”
Both badly need this result for their League campaigns and though Ulster’s run to this point has been poorer than Friday’s visitors, the southern province have had a heap of their own problems this season prompting Graham Rowntree’s sudden exit from the top job.
As Lowry points out: “I’m sure there will be plenty of support and we need it this week because it is a massive game for us.
“No better way to put it right than in an interpro, in a tough derby game.”
He’ll also badly want this weekend to follow a different rhythm once his job of work is done.