Ulster says now

It's only a game, but it's more than that. It is a rugby story, and essentially an Ulster story, but by now it also transcends mere rugby, or sport, or even Ulster. It's become an odyssey, climaxed by a once-in-a-lifetime event, and it's one to tell the grandchildren about.

There is, of course, a danger of getting carried away by the symbolism of it all. Ireland uniting behind Ulster in their unlikely quest to conquer Europe, and in Lansdowne Road, Dublin, as well. Soon after the dust has settled today, life will go on in Ulster and the extremists will poison the Ulster air, but it's got to be doing some good. And if nothing else, it's glorious escapism. Fantasy rugby.

Harry Williams, the affable, articulate and sanguine Ulster coach, probably struck the right note in the aftermath of their semi-final win over Stade Francais when expressing the hope that this Ulster team would inherit Barry McGuigan's mantle.

Like McGuigan, all are welcome on this odyssey. In the chaotic post-match Ulster dressingroom after the semi-final it was David Trimble. Yesterday at Aras an Uachtarain a small Ulster squad delegation visited President Mary McAleese. It was small not out of insult, but because by Wednesday the squad needed to be cocooned from all the many distractions. There is, after all, a game of rugby to be played this afternoon.

Throughout it all, Williams and his uniformly approachable and polite players have been self-consciously apolitical. They are only a rugby team, first representing Ulster and then, by extension, Ireland.

"We want to be the first team to win it for Ireland," maintains Williams. "It's not just for us. Although we're a very tight-knit bunch, we're very aware that this is not just for Ulster, this is for Ireland. We're all under the IRFU umbrella."

It wasn't always like this. When Ulster literally kicked off the 1998-99 European Cup against Edinburgh Reivers on a chilly night on September 18th, there can't have been more than 4,000 people present. One of them was this writer who, having been caught in multifarious Friday evening bottlenecks between Dublin and Belfast, was five minutes late. Sod's law decreed that the score was already 14-7 to Edinburgh.

A loose, frantic game of non-tackling rugby ended 38-all thanks to a last kick, an equalising drop goal by the Scots' Duncan Hodge.

That result prompted this reporter to deduce that it might well cost Ulster their chance of qualifying as the group runnersup. Mind you, anyone who predicted then that it would all end up like this would have had an entire wing in an asylum custom-built for himself.

The players weren't far away from thinking likewise, all the more so after an ensuing 39-3 defeat away to Toulouse. It was in the dressingroom after that game that Williams untypically lost his cool for the only time this season.

When Ulster then lost to Munster a week later by 31-9, at the beginning of October, the players slunk into the Musgrave Park dressingroom in Cork and contemplated a season that seemed to have gone decidedly pear-shaped. It was that bad, but out of little acorns and all that.

They'd suffered a few setbacks along the way already. By the end of August their captain Mark McCall had played his last game of the campaign after giving way to an increasingly worrisome neck injury which now threatens his playing career.

Though he'd deny it, McCall has remained the Ulster team's spiritual leader ever since, becoming a quasi member of the coaching staff. "Our season was just about to fall apart," McCall recalls of those moments in Cork.

The following Monday Williams changed the squad's daily routine. As has now been fairly well documented, daily training was switched to mid-morning and mid-afternoon, no longer crack of dawn and night-time, to accommodate the part-timers.

"It just hadn't been working out and that was a very big, big decision," says McCall. "We (the fulltimers) had been talking about it and then Harry came up with the idea without us going to him. For a couple of days afterwards the boys couldn't believe it.

"Us London Irish boys were used to it, but the home-based players from the year before couldn't believe it. It was more like a nine-to-five job, and a not very demanding nine-to-five job."

Immediately, Ulster went to Wales and destroyed Ebbw Vale 61-28. All had changed, changed utterly. "Our season was weird," admits McCall. "Earlier this season, quite a lot of the time loads of players wanted to give their tuppence worth. It wasn't necessarily a case of dressingroom unrest, but it was noisy. As everyone's seen, the merit of of Harry's ways means it's become a lot quieter."

McCall's former Irish teammates at London Irish ask him: "How have they done this?" Begrudgers point to Ulster's limitations, and claim they're an unexceptional team by the standards of European Cup finals. But that's partly what makes the odyssey so good.

"There's guys there playing better than people thought they could, and perhaps better than they thought they could themselves," says McCall. "There's five or six guys there playing out of their skins, playing the best rugby of their lives."

With the switch in daily emphasis towards the band of 17 fulltimers came a selectorial switch. The likes of 35-year-old Rab Irwin, who was on the CIYMS thirds three years ago, and Mark Blair, a hungry 22-year-old who had sampled New Zealand and Scottish rugby, came into the team and they haven't lost since.

Belief, real belief, came when the talismanic Simon Mason kickstarted a rousing 29-24 home win over Toulouse in front of 9,000 spectators. The Ravenhill factor was up and running. Becoming spoilt, Ravenhill almost yawned collectively when Ebbw Vale were merely beaten 43-13.

Expatriate support came with the prodigal university students of Edinburgh who, along with the travelling contingent, witnessed a gutsy 23-21 over the Reviers. Defeat would have meant an exit from the cup, but thanks to Toulouse's scarcely believable defeat in Ebbw Vale the day before, victory meant a Ravenhill quarterfinal; without which Ulster would not now be in today's final. The Gods, whatever their persuasion, were with them now. "Look, we recognise that we've had a bit of fortune along the way to get home draws," concedes McCall on behalf of them all.

But the quarter-final with Toulouse seemingly took the biscuit. It was the night of a mini-fairytale. Andy Ward gave his mobile to McCall at pitchside, confident in the knowledge that his evening's efforts for Ulster wouldn't be interrupted by a call from the maternity ward where his wife Wendy was. When the phone rang early in the second-half, a young woman asked if she could speak to Andy. McCall asked who this was, as he was expecting a rather important call on Andy's behalf. But this was it, the caller was Wendy's sister.

The ovation which was afforded Ward as he left the pitch prematurely was probably the choker of the season.

"When we went on to win it made it perfect," says McCall. "You couldn't top that, especially after Humphs (McCall's close friend and successor as captain, David Humphreys) did his AC joint making the try-saving tackle in the last minute."

McCall reckons inheriting the captaincy has been beneficial for the gifted, if enigmatic Humphreys. "I'm very, very glad for him. It's made him a more responsible player. We wouldn't have won the last three games without him. He's played three sensational matches."

Humphreys's 80-metre wonder try in the semi-final win over Stade Francais was undoubtedly the high of the campaign; so far. So infectious was the enthusiasm that before the post-match lap of honour, substitute Stuart Duncan whipped off his tracksuit and asked McCall to rub some dirt over him.

The post-match euphoria was the best yet, lasting longer because French TV had forced a Saturday afternoon kick-off. "For the first time in my life I can say that the winner on this day was rugby," said Serge Simon, the unusually humble Stade Francais prop. "The conditions were marvellous and the public support was extraordinary, and I'm very happy for these people because we have been able to understand how much this victory meant for all the people."

Even the seven or eight million people watching the match on French TV wouldn't begrudge Ulster a win today. And certainly few amongst the estimated 23 million viewers worldwide wouldn't, be they in Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Italy, Israel, the Middle East, Malaysia, Thailand or South Africa.

For a province which usually provides more tragic images for the world, the image today is purely positive. The goodwill is everywhere, surprising even the Ulster contingent who've headed down south on All-Ireland league duty with their clubs.

Faxes have come in from all over the world, from all over Ireland and all over Ulster; from Linfield soccer club and gaelic clubs in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal. The Ulster Branch have been going through five rolls a day, and Williams literally has to force open his office door against the small forest on the floor.

The demand for tickets is unprecedented; demand exceeding supply by two to one in Ulster. "It makes you wish we had an 80,000-seater stadium all of a sudden," says a frustrated McCall. "All my friends have been looking for tickets. Nobody I know has got one. I don't know who's got the bloody tickets."

The Ulster players literally can't walk anywhere in the province without people staring at them. There was a free lunch in one coffee shop. There was the refusal to serve them a pint last Saturday. "I can't serve you, you've got a big match next week."

There's a palpable nervousness. An ex-schools teammate of McCall's, whose career was ended by injury 14 years ago, rings regularly to say he's more nervous now than when they when he was playing himself.

Whether an uncapped part-timer like Andy Matchett or Stephen McKinty, or a 25-times capped international like Johnny Bell, who's played against the All Blacks in a World Cup finals, they've all one thing in common today.

It's the biggest game of their lives.