The Game may not have quite lived up to expectations, but this was still a quality encounter between Ireland's finest. In ending two decades of hurt in Ulster, Munster not only inflicted the European champions with their first defeat in 11 months and 11 matches, but also removed a monkey off their backs which was gradually becoming a gorilla.

The last time Munster won up north, Anthony Foley wasn't long out of his pram and Brendan Foley was in the team. The Munster skipper Mick Galwey spoke of his "great sense of pride" at finally breaking his Belfast duck on his eighth attempt. Declan Kidney was "particularly delighted for the senior players, because it was a game they had picked out that they wanted to win. It helps to get rid of piseogs," he said, referring to fairy spells. Having ended a Euro piseog in Padova last season, this latest one will mentally help Munster in Europe as well. "Now they've won in Ulster, why not win in Colomiers? Now we have the bread and butter task of winning our home matches."

Munster's win was utterly deserved and, in fact, they wouldn't have been flattered had they beaten Ulster even more emphatically. Entering the last 10 minutes, as a continuation of the previous quarter of an hour or so, Munster opted for a sequence of close-in set-pieces rather than kick for a 14 point lead, so as to run the clock down. In the process, they were going for their third five-point haul in succession by virtue of a fourth try.

Marcus Horgan came in, Peter Clohessy reverted to the blind side, and the Munster eight began driving Ulster over their line, whereupon the ball squirted free for Andy Matchett to steal possession and for David Humphreys to release Riaz Fredericks from his own line.

"It was a strange thing to get up from the scrum and see this fella with dreadlocks flying down under the posts at the far end of the field," joked Galwey. The 14 point turnover translated to a two-point swing in the table, for it brought Ulster back to within a score of Munster and thus prevented the leaders opening up a six-point buffer before the return meeting.

However, as the cliche goes, "a win is a win is a win", and never more so than here. While Galwey and several others had a psychological barrier about this fixture, the captain pointed out that aside from Keith Wood (who has never lost to Ulster) the new breed didn't have any baggage.

Two of the six who fell into this category made big contributions; Mike Mullins creating more holes in Ulster's defence than any other player so far this season and scoring two tries, while man-of-the-match and ex-Wallaby John Langford was a dominant individual. His crucial steal of an Ulster throw on the Munster 10-metre line in the 80th minute was his fifth of the game.

Munster needed a big, domineering performance from their pack and they got it. Aside from regularly making indentations in the Ulster line-out and scrum, Munster's command of their own set-pieces was almost flawless. When David Humphreys's boot did pin Munster deep into their own 22, Langford's adhesive hands and their excellent mauling took them away from danger.

With their tight five well on top, the Munster back row totally eclipsed their more renowned Ulster counterparts (which will have given them no smirking satisfaction at all, not in the slightest). David Corkery set the tone with a crunching blind side rib-tickler on Eric Miller that could be heard by everyone in the ground and he followed it up with a close-range try after David Wallace had made the inroads off a maul from a line-out. Ronan O'Gara was in utter command, pinning Ulster back with the slight breeze and enabling Munster to control the throw to such an extent that they had eight of the first nine.

Tom Tierney also had a fine game, save for one three-point turnover at the base of a scrum, and his searing blind side break off a scrum inside the 10-metre line led to the first of Mullins's two tries which sandwiched Spencer Bromley's effort.

Ulster had their moments, sporadically, and in using James Topping off the blind side wing through the middle from early on seemed to target Mullins defensively. However, apart from one instance, they couldn't get Andy Ward, Dion O'Cuinneagain and the other support runners to finish off their initial intrusions.

Ultimately it required the arrival of Fredericks and some audacious catch-up running from the deep to give them a lifeline which they hadn't really deserved.

Both Harry Williams and Humphreys readily accepted that it would have been a steal. "We didn't get it right up front today, that was the disappointing thing," said a phlegmatic Williams. While citing the early loss of frontrower Allen Clarke as a mitigating factor, the Ulster coach admitted that "maybe we could have read their line-out defence a wee bit better and thrown to our spare man." In other words, stop throwing in the general direction of John Langford.

Perhaps, with hindsight, this loss was coming and will serve to jolt Ulster out of any complacency or comfort zone attached to second season syndrome.

Of some consolation was the added zest former English under-21 and Richmond left winger Bromley added out wide, where he exposed the converted Colm McMahon's defensive rawness for Ulster's first try. The biggest impact substitution of the campaign thus far turned out to be Fredericks, the dreadlocked Australian-reared South African recruit from Hong Kong.

"We've known there was going to be something there," said Williams of Fredericks. "We try not to recruit dummies." Apparently, Ulster's reluctance to blood Fredericks sooner was to let him acquaint himself with Ulster's high-pressure, four-up defence. To which Declan Kidney quipped, "he certainly knows the attacking system."

Scoring sequence: 10 mins Corkery try, O'Gara con 0-7; 21 mins O'Gara pen 0-10; 28 mins O'Gara pen 0-13; 31 mins Mason pen 313; 33 mins Mullins try 3-18; 37 mins Bromley 8-18; 42 mins Humphreys drop goal 11-18; 55 mins Mullins try, O'Gara con 11-25; 57 mins Mason pen 14-25; 74 mins Fredericks try, Mason con 21-25; 76 mins Mason pen 24-25.

Ulster: S Mason; J Topping, J Cunningham, J Bell, S Bromley; D Humphreys (capt), A Matchett; J Fitzpatrick, A Clarke, G Leslie, P Johns, G Longwell, D O'Cuinneagain, E Miller, A Ward. Replacements - R Weir for Clarke (23 mins), M Blair for Longwell (50 mins), T McWhirter for Miller (59 mins), S Best for Leslie (67 mins), R Fredericks for Cunningham (69 mins).

Munster: D Crotty; C McMahon, J Kelly, M Mullins, A Horgan; R O'Gara, T Tierney; P Clohessy, K Wood, J Hayes, M Galwey (capt), J Langford, D Corkery, A Foley, D Wallace. Replacements - B O'Meara for Tierney (53 mins), M Horan for J Hayes (73 mins), A Quinlan for Wallace (77 mins).

Referee: A Lewis (Leinster).