BACKING IT UP

It’s time for Ulster to stop dreaming and start believing.

Before the game on Friday night if you’d asked anyone at the Kingspan Stadium if they really thought Ulster were going to triumph you’d probably have found very few who would respond positively. When you compared the two squads – the international stars of Toulouse compared to the injury ravaged Ulster team – there were very few areas for home fans to be positive. And yet by the end of the game everything had been turned on its head.

If that wasn’t a flawless performance then it was pretty close. In the build up to the game Les Kiss had put a lot of emphasis on shifting Toulouse back and forth across the pitch to tire out their big forwards – the Johnstons, Tekoris and Dusautoirs – and it was a tactic that worked wonders. No more than 15 minutes into the game some Toulouse players were already huffing and puffing and once the tries began to flow the heads dropped too.

What was even more impressive is that you can’t fault any player on the Ulster team for their effort in the victory. Where seasoned heads like Best, Pienaar and Trimble led from the front by example, it was the young players like McCall and O’Connor (whose performance makes you wonder where he’s been so far this season) who brought the performance together with stellar outings in the white shirt.

Man for man, Ulster were excellent.

And as I said, they must now start believing that the quarter-finals are not beyond them. Last year we picked up the five points at home to the Scarlets and then went out to Llanelli and left with nothing – this year we come off the back of one of our best ever European results and we must back it up otherwise it was worth nothing.

But this team is good enough to do it, and they have proved it time and time again. McCall, Best and Herbst have formed a front row that is strong enough to stand up to one of the strongest front rows in the Top14, Nick Williams looks to be hitting some fantastic form this season (sadly a little late for our liking) and our backs are lethal when they are given the ball to play with. When it all comes together, combined with the correct tactics, this team can be fantastic.

What a win on Sunday would do for our confidence and our quarter-final prospects. From what looked like European oblivion, hope has sprung eternal and there is suddenly a real chance that, if we can pull off one of the most remarkable double-header wins, we could actually reach the last eight. In the midst of Irish turmoil, Ulster would reign supreme.

And they would breathe life back into the Irish set-up.

After the Saracens defeat a month ago there was a lot of disappointment and Kiss and Best talked about how they knew that was not the true Ulster and it was a terrible night at the office. And based on what we witnessed on Friday night there is a sense that Ulster are getting close to what Kiss envisioned when he took over a few months ago.

Certainly if you look at the mindset currently in the Ulster camp as opposed to Munster and Leinster there is no comparison. Ulster are riding a personal high, while Munster fans are not confident in their team’s ability to get out of their pool after they were handed their Saracens-equivalent defeat by Leicester on Saturday night and Leinster are all but out after their loss in Toulon. Ironically it is Ulster who now probably have the best chance of qualifying for the latter stages of the tournament.

A lot has been made of the shortcomings of Irish rugby over the last few months, particularly the state of the provinces, but Connacht have gone a long way to prove that a homegrown team can still be a potent threat, while Ulster look to be putting up a good fight in Europe – and in a one-off game there is every chance that they could sneak an away win in the quarter-finals.

I’m not saying the IRFU’s problems have suddenly been alleviated by one good performance in Europe, but perhaps it suggests that things aren’t as bad as they seem. That said, let’s wait until the return leg at the Stade Ernest Wallon on Sunday before jumping to hasty conclusions – defeat there and we’re right back where we started.

European Oblivion.