As the bus travelled up to the gates of Ravenhill, the Reverend Ian Paisley's church is there on the left hand side as you go in. I always regarded it as a big temple of 'No' and always a portent of things to come. If I ever met any of the Ulster players walking the pitch prior to the game again this weird feeling of the negative pervaded. They never said "Hello Neil". It was always something like "How about yee Fra-NO."

It was interesting to hear Ulster's coach Mark McCall say the word "No" as in "No, Ulster cannot qualify from the group". He was reasonably serious when he said it but it was more like a 'no nay never no more' type of No. A little bit of mischief thrown in to the No.

Whether you think you can or think you cannot, you are right. I would suspect that this Ulster group think they can, I just can't understand why their coach would say they can't. After last Friday's events we know they certainly can. So possibly it could be 'Ulster says maybe' because I suspect that they will get a few favours along the way and they will be more than capable of having it all to play for in Toulouse in the final match of the series.

London Irish are gone but they will still have a vital role to play in determining the eventual winner. That is of course if they are interested. I am given cause for concern here, in the sense that the Premiership, over-inflated competition of self-import that it is, will get preference. Brian Smith's contract with London Irish would have some hard and fast rules, the hard being that the Premiership is his bread and butter, the Heineken is the jam. He can now concentrate solely on their position in the Premiership so that they can qualify for the Heineken again. They were never a play-off contender but after last week's fireworks there was hope that they could make progress. Being a team of exiles they have no real home and whether it was Sunbury, the Stoop or the Madjeski, they could never really regard the place as a true spiritual home.

Conversely they never seemed to be over-awed with the serious questions of having to go away from "home" despite the terrific support that they have.

If this Ulster team is to progress they will have to do so with the knowledge that they have to operate outside of the cosy confines of Ravenhill. The whole concept of enclave or citadel rugby will have to be explored. Maybe some budding Queens University Psychology undergraduate will do a thesis on the subject and explain to us all why this home team play so well at home and just can't deliver the goods away from the fortress.

And when I say 'can't deliver the goods' I mean a total non-performance characterised with total systems failure in most aspects of their game plan, which is second nature to them in Ravenhill.

There is no question that Ulster have progressed immeasurably from the last days of Solomon's regime. It is unfortunate that this graph may grind to a halt sometime in May. You would have to say that a lot of Ulster's victories last year to win the Magners League and their sustained pre-eminence this year can be put down to a sum of the parts display, particularly from their pack.

Yet there is a contradiction in terms here because one man is really responsible for most of their wins. Some of Ulster's players are more equal than others and to give Paddy Wallace more time at out-half and actually rest David Humphreys never happens, despite it seeming like the obvious thing to do.

The reason precisely is they cannot do without him.

This is because even when Ulster play badly Humphreys can still win games for them and in the 150 or so games that he has played for them, it would purely be a matter of opinion, but how many wins in those matches could be put purely down to his presence on the field?

Even in Humphreys' hey day which has stretched on a remarkable amount of time since they won the Heineken Cup in 1999, they have never won away from home and if they want to be taken seriously again they will have to address this issue.

I have absolutely no doubt that they will beat Llanelli in Ravenhill in January and so we will measure their progress by how they perform in Toulouse, irrespective of whether there is or is not anything to play for. Again I am quite certain there will be a lot riding on that game. Friday's match was interesting in many respects. I unfortunately seem to be spending a lot of time watching Mr Christophe Berdos officiating in matches of this significance. He got most of his calls right but it is the ones he gets wrong that infuriate and once again you could see both captains talking to him with disbelief, looking for clarification. What do you do if you see a ref running around with half a head? Reload and try again.

London Irish were by far the more impressive team in the first half. Even though possession was pretty even, they managed to make better use of what they had, they looked more concise in executing their options and they led 6-5 at half time.

The London Irish pivot Shane Geraghty did not produce anything like the sort of performance we saw last week. He didn't lose confidence and he certainly didn't lack for ability but he had far less space to operate in and his kicking wasn't nearly as effective.

Across the line from him Humphreys was having a pretty ordinary day. His pack weren't really motoring yet and once again his inside partner was taking a couple of steps out of the ball and looking for spaces that didn't exist. If Humphreys had Stringer inside him Ulster would have been far more efficient with the ball that came their way.

The game turned just after half time, as it so often does. Irish had started brightly, looking to improve on their lead, but they went off-side on their own 22 and, with Geraghty injured, Ulster took the mark and moved the ball back to near enough the 22. Humphreys took off his scrum cap and called for his kicking tee.

The referee had been checking on Geraghty's condition. The London Irish players filtered back and formed a circle behind the line, certain that Ulster would take the penalty kick. Humphreys tapped the ball forward, picked it up and scampered into the corner - only Danny Coetzee copped the play and chased Humphreys into the corner. In the after match interview, Humphreys stated that Simon Best had alerted him to the fact that all the London Irish players were gathered beside the posts and that he should go for it. It's a simple explanation of what happened but to regard this as an off-the-cuff play is ridiculous. It was a pre-planned move.

The Hand of Back was a pre-planned move which Leicester employed.

Collapse the scrum on the tight head side, referee goes around to check, flick it out of the scrum half 's hands while the referee can't see. Outside the law but effective. What Ulster did was well within the law and it was incumbent upon London Irish to wait for the signal to kick. They can't complain and I don't think you could invoke it as being against the rules or the spirit of the game. Ulster took the chance, got their points and it completely took the wind out of London Irish sails. Spiritually they were gone and they lost their focus and urgency as Ulster picked up on another of London Irish mistakes. Justin Bishop completely missed the ball when he went down on it and McMillan got over as a result. At 22-6 the game, you thought, should have been over but London Irish are one of the great counter punchers and they hauled it back to 22-13 through Tiesi.

It became a little bit frantic as Ulster chased bald-headed for their fourth try and bonus point and they could easily have been picked off to make it a one point game coming in to the dying minutes. But yet again Humphreys steadied the ship, nailed his kicks and bid adieu to Geraghty as he was hauled off in the 68th minute.

January will tell us an awful lot about this revitalised Ulster team and its infusion of new blood into the Irish set-up. I hope they pull it off.