Cards on the table time. This column has never been convinced by rugby's charms, never been totally sure about the strange initiation rites, the Land Rovers, the hip flasks and the funny accents.

Rugby has been a foreign country and the prospect of going to a match has had all the appeal of a first teenage disco - you're not sure what the people are going to be like, you don't know what you're supposed to do and you definitely have no idea about the more intricate rules.

All that is now in the past. Gone forever. The momentous change came in the course of a few hours at Ravenhill last Friday night. The Ulster rugby team put in a magnificent sporting performance of focused intensity. It really was that good. And just for good measure it had a new born baby thrown into the mix.

Even though they had beaten Toulouse in a group game earlier in the European Cup, this was a quarter-final in which Ulster should never really have had a squeak. The French side were past winners of the competition and had never before failed to reach the semi-finals. After the phoney war of the qualifying stages, this was supposed to be the platform for them to open up and put the unheralded upstarts in their place.

But almost from the moment they arrived in Belfast last Thursday there were indications that all was not quite right in Toulouse's world. First there were the unedifying reports of grumbles about the training facilities that had been provided and then there was the ungracious announcement that the team would be side-stepping the post-match function to fly back to France directly after the game. All this before a maul had been rolled in anger (see, even picking up the lingo) and Ulster must have had a real sense that the wind was starting to blow in their direction.

Nor did Toulouse reckon on the canny tactical nous of Ulster coach Harry Williams. Now in his second spell in charge, Williams has clearly revelled in the new possibilities that professionalism has thrown up and both he and his players have clearly benefited from the time and space to apply themselves to the tasks in hand.

Walking along the Ravenhill Road half an hour before kick-off last Friday night, there was a palpable feeling of expectation coupled with a dawning realisation that this was a rare Northern glimpse of proper, topflight international sport. Inside the ground, packed with as big a crowd as it had seen in 15 years, the atmosphere was, if anything, even better.

A lot of the credit for that must go to the Ulster branch of the IRFU and its go-ahead chief-executive, Michael Reid.

Exhibiting a level of ambition and imagination clearly lacking in his football and GAA counterparts. Reid had clearly gone to a lot of time and trouble to conjure up a real sense of occasion for this biggest of nights for Ulster. Beer tents, promotional gifts and live music may not be the stuff of top-flight entertainment, but compared to the subdued pre-match fare at Clones or Windsor this was like Friday night at the London Palladium.

The coup de grace was a fireworks display at the far end of the ground which coincided nicely with a squally shower to greet the Toulouse players as they trotted gingerly on to the Ravenhill pitch. Little wonder they looked so uncomfortable and ill at ease. This was Ulster's party and they were just about as welcome as New Year's Eve gatecrashers without a carryout.

Even to this embarrassingly untutored eye, it was clear that Ulster were working to a strict game plan right from the off and it was one which was to prove ruthlessly effective. Pre-match, some of the Ulster players had spoken about being "in the face" of their Toulouse opponents but few could have guessed they would take that quite so literally. The pack hounded their French counterparts relentlessly with Gary Longwell and Mark Blair immense in the second row and the peerless Andy Ward bottling up the merest hint of creativity from the Toulouse back-line.

For Ward, in particular, this was Boy's Own stuff. With his wife in the nearby Lagan Valley hospital about to give birth to their first child at any minute, he delayed his decision about playing until an hour and a half before kick-off. Eventually he told Harry Williams that he was available with the proviso that he was off at the first sign of any action of the "baby about to arrive" front.

And for the 49 minutes before Mark McCall's mobile rang with the call ashore, Ward was immense, the beating pulse of a team that had been largely built around his impressive talents. Courtesy of a car provided by the Chief Constable of the RUC, Ronnie Flanagan, he was able to manage the not inconsiderable feat of having been present at two momentous occasions on the same December evening.

Ward's was not the only Ravenhill triumph. For years this column has nodded sagely and pretended to know what they were talking about when its rugby friends mumbled darkly about David Humphreys having "great hands" but not being "strong enough in the tackle for international rugby". Every second of last Friday night's game suggested otherwise.

The out-half's drop goals under the most intense pressure were eloquent testimony to his footballing ability but his greatest moment came minutes from the end in a passage of play during which Ulster's European Cup future flashed before their eyes. Humphreys could only watch in horror as his grubber kick was picked up by Ougier deep inside the Toulouse 22. If he had been performing to supposed type, the easiest thing in the world for him to do as the ball was moved ominously wide would have been to make a convincing effort to get back to cover. And all the time he could have relied on the get-out clause that this was really a job for the wingers and the centres.

But to his heroic credit, Humphreys chose option B. He began a gut-busting, arcing run right across the wide expanse of the Ravenhill pitch that climaxed in a shuddering tackle on Michel Marfaing. Without his intervention, a try and defeat would have been the inevitable result. For his trouble he damaged his left shoulder leaving participation in next month's semi-final in some doubt. No matter. He has now stuffed every harsh word down the throats of the begrudgers.

What was given with home advantage for the semi-final in last Sunday's draw, was taken away with being paired against the competition favourites, Stade Francais. The old reservations about the rituals, the off-road vehicles, the strange concoctions of brandy and whisky and the odd ways of talking have not gone away. But we'll be back in full effect at Ravenhill in January. After all, there is no one quite as zealous as a convert.