Despite what you may have heard, this column is not and never has been a platform for crackpots, and it has repeatedly refused to be manipulated by unscrupulous people for selfish ends.

So when Eddie Irvine sent a short note begging for some publicity for the first meeting of his new discussion group, "Gender Studies - Redefining Male Identity in the New Millennium", he received a curt but polite refusal.

And when the management of the Tyrone senior football team came in desperation with an advertisement seeking competent corner backs over five feet tall who might be free for a week or two in the summer, they too were sent packing.

But the time has come to break with that fine tradition. After months of ethical journalism a turn in the road has been reached, and the only option left is a direct and heartfelt appeal.

This change of heart has been on the cards for a while, but after events at Ravenhill last Friday night it became starkly clear that all the best intentions in the world are useless and that things have gone too far.

There is no easy way to say this, so it is best to get straight to the point: the Ulster rugby team, European Cup champions just 12 months ago, have been kidnapped and replaced by a collection of look-alike imposters. Those same imposters have then proceeded to embarrass their captives with a succession of dismal displays in this year's competition.

Given the six straight losses this winter there is no other rational explanation. The Ulster rugby team is missing. For the future health of the game here we have to find them and we have to find them now.

Last year it was all so different. Tens of thousands of supporters travelled to Dublin to watch the team we will now call "Real Ulster" win the European Cup on that tumultuous day at Lansdowne Road. The fans knew their players and those same players were buoyed by the knowledge they could rely on the watching thousands. All was well with the world.

For months after that victory, "Real Ulster" partied hard and enjoyed their celebrity and the new-found limelight. Inter-county Gaelic footballers may have enjoyed the status of film stars in the bars of south Belfast for decades now, but the rugby boys were a new phenomenon and they took full advantage.

The squad, tastefully bedecked in their regulation blue Ulster blazers, were regular features on the social circuit and were feted everywhere. In a short space of time all those tough slogs on the training pitch and the long sessions in the gym became distant memories.

Perhaps inevitably, as spring turned into summer, the men of "Real Ulster" faded into the background. This, it now seems, was the time when their as yet unknown kidnappers struck. Intelligence about their identity is hard to find, but one theory doing the rounds here is that they are made up of disgruntled 35-year-old, slightly over-weight club players who have grown increasingly disillusioned and bitter at missing out on the perks and riches of the professional era.

Instead, they have had to make do with occasional Saturday morning appearances for the Fifths in front of three people followed by a lonely afternoon in the plush clubhouse bar dreaming of what might have been.

Given the way their plan has been carried out so expertly, it is obvious it had been in place for some time. The only thing which delayed the miscreants was that they were forced to wait six years for the emergence of an Irish rugby team of any description that could win more than one game in the course of a season. "Real Ulster" presented them with the opportunity they had longed for.

It is only now that the quality of the tactical planning involved is becoming clear. The quality of the make-up and - in some extreme cases - of the facial reconstruction has been incredible. The players who have taken the field during the Pool Three were almost identical to those who had been carried shoulder high off the pitch as Lansdowne Road last January. It was only when they actually started to play and chalk up one poor performance after another that the truth slowly became clear.

NOW THAT the details of this nefarious plan are emerging, what is to be done? The European Cup is obviously gone, with the ignominy of Ulster finishing the Pool stages as the lowest scorers in the competition (71) only rubbing salt in the wounds. Even those giants of European rugby, Padova, scored five more.

But none of that should dilute our efforts to secure the safe return of men of "Real Ulster". We want them back and we need them back. Even already, the reaction of the Ulster rugby public, one of the great cornerstones of society here, has been tremendous. Last Saturday, as the shockwaves of the previous night's defeat by Bourgoin reverberated through every corner of middle class society, there were signs that the rugby people were mobilising.

In the morning the squash courts, the coffee shops and the garden centres throughout the land were empty. In the afternoon the golf courses were all but deserted. Instead, the men and women of the rugby world took to the streets in "his and hers" sheepskin coats with only their full hip-flasks to provide sustenance and stave off the biting winter winds.

As darkness fell they could still be spotted on the leafy streets of Bangor, Ballymena and Belfast searching for clues and periodically calling out the names of their favourite players in the vain hope that it might prompt a faint and muffled cry for help.

And though their quest ended in failure, the same valiant people resumed the search the following afternoon in the couple of hours between the end of Sunday lunch and the start of the Antiques Roadshow. The kidnappers should know that these are determined people and they will not give up easily.

"We will leave no stone unturned in the battle to get our rugby team back," said a spokesman. "We will be on the streets every weekend searching for our boys just as long as it takes - or at least until the start of the Six Nations."

For now little can be done except wait for the ransom note. But what has happened here in the past few months should set alarm bells ringing throughout the rugby community. Watch out Munster - you could be next.