IT'S always a good sign when the youngsters in the home support are trailing after their own for autographs, and not the exotic opposition.

Toulouse's galacticos hadn't so much as a pencil thrust in their collective faces as they trudged off the Ravenhill pitch yesterday, thoroughly defeated and thoroughly embarrassed. The easy thing to say in circumstances like these is to conclude that the moody French weren't up for it but the fact of the matter was that they just weren't allowed to be up for it.

From the first ruck, Ulster thrust themselves right into Toulouse's faces and the visitors didn't know how to cope with the physical onslaught.

The excellent Stephen Ferris, and his back-row partner Neil Best, appeared like magnets that had been ionised to the Toulouse shirt. Every time a French forward attempted to sneak off the side of a ruck, the Ulster flankers were on top of them, shifting them backwards a couple of yards in the process. All done legally, too.

Unable to get any go-forward ball, Toulouse's much vaunted back-line had nothing to work with but while the home side's victory was manufactured up front, it was painted and packaged outwide. The bright and bustling centre combination of Paddy Wallace and Paul Steinmetz was hugely dangerous throughout, while Andrew Trimble looked like a man who'd been starved of a rugby ball for the week. David Humphreys directed things beautifully at out-half, despite a few ropey kicks to touch, but it was their collective accuracy under pressure that was most impressive. It's all very well to note in the video room that the Toulouse defence has trouble coping with the switch pass inside, but it's another thing entirely to pull it off in the heat of battle. Twice they managed it in the first-half, and twice they gained the ultimate reward.

"We had opportunities to get the fourth try but we won't dwell on it, " said Isaac Boss afterwards. "We're happy to get four points against Toulouse. It might be crucial not getting the four tries, it might not be, but we're still happy. It's not something we're used to, being 30-3 against a side like Toulouse." That's for sure, but Ulster looked coiled from the start and they made the breakthrough within the first five minutes.

From a line-out just inside their own half, Humphreys skipped to Steinmetz at 13 and as the visiting defence rushed up to greet him, the Kiwi slipped the ball delicately back inside to the onrushing Tommy Bowe. The young winger's line was so precise he was past the Toulouse cover before they knew what happened and the supporting Trimble crossed for a wonderfully well executed try.

Humphreys converted with ease, and before Toulouse could get their mitts on any kind of decent possession, the out-half extended his side's lead to 13 points with two penalties on the back of Toulouse transgressions.

The French side's only scoreboard contribution to the game came courtesy of a Vincent Courrent penalty on 18 minutes, at a time when Ulster were going through a brief sloppy period, but they got their game back on track pretty rapidly. This time Isaac Boss was both the instigator and finisher, as the scrum-half ran diagonally across the Toulouse defence for a good 10 yards, before veering left and bisecting the defensive line with ease. His jaunt to the line from a good 40 yards was something of a victory march.

It didn't stop there. With the Toulouse defence . . . if you could call it that . . . drifting right, Humphreys shifted the ball back inside to Trimble, who ran onto the ball with such speed and depth it appeared as thought he'd been catapulted from one of the runways at Belfast Airport. The two Toulouse players closing in on him from either side didn't even bother the 22-yearold, who continued along his set course and emphatically ploughed over the line.

Humphreys added a third penalty before the break to bring his side's tally to 30 points by the interval, and the only thing that will be nibbling away at Ulster this morning was their inability to secure a four-try bonus point. They had a couple of opportunities from line-out mauls inside the Toulouse 22, but they just couldn't get things rolling effectively enough. Never mind, they have enough to be smiling about.

ULSTER B Cunningham; T Bowe, P Steinmetz, P Wallace, A Trimble; D Humphreys, I Boss; J Fitzpatrick, R Best, B Young, J Harrison (c), M McCullough, N Best, S Ferris, R Wilson Subs A Maxwell for Bowe, 25 mins; K Campbell for Boss, 39 mins; K Dawson for Ferris, 63 mins; K Maggs for Steinmetz, 74 mins; T Barker for Harrison, 75 mins; Scorers Humphreys 3 cons, 3 pens;

Trimble 2 tries; Boss try; Sin-bin J Fitzpatrick 68 mins TOULOUSE C Poitrenaud; V Clerc, Y Jauzion, F Fritz, C Heymans; J Dubois, V Courrent; S Perugini, Y Bru (c), O Hasan, P Albacete, T Brennan, T Dusatoir, G Lamboly, F Pelous Subs G Thomas for Dubois and R MilloChlusky for Brennan, both half-time; D Human for Perugini, 51 mins; X Garbajosa for Poitrenaud, 59 mins; J Bouilhou for Albacete, 63 mins; Scorers Courrent pen; Sin-bin Jauzion, 43 mins; Pelous 53 mins;

Referee D Pearson (England)