Ulster players will have arrived home yesterday following their mauling at the Stade Jean Bouin Stadium and wonder how they can counteract the all-singing-and-dancing French side this Friday.
However, it says a lot about the injury-ravaged side that after being so comprehensibly mauled after 40 minutes, they managed to ruffle a few feathers in the second half before faltering again near the end.
While not offering the loss of David Humphreys before kick-off and the absence of Gary Longwell and Jeremy Davidson in the starting line-up as an excuse, coach Alan Solomons knew he was always up against it.
"Considering our injury problems I thought we did reasonably well," said Solomons, who also watched his midfield pair of Jonathan Bell and Shane Stewart leave early through leg injuries.
"I thought Paddy Johns and Mark Blair did well, and I could not have asked for more from Paddy Wallace.
"We made too many errors, and really stood off and let them play. Hopefully we'll have David (Humphreys) back for next week, but Shane (Stewart) will definitely not be available. If we play the game right in their faces, then there is no reason why we cannot overturn the result."
Stade coach John Connolly was more annoyed at his team not going full pelt for the 80 minutes, and so allowing Ulster off the hook after they were cowering 27-11 down at the break.
"We stopped playing at half-time. Normally we try to really kill off teams when we have them in that kind of position, but today, for whatever reason, we didn't do it. Ulster did well in the second half and scrambled to great effect."
And scramble they did in that first period which saw their pack completely over-run by the Stade eight. Their set-pieces were a bit of a shambles and the defence leaked like a colander. However, they did score the first try of the game when Tony McWhirter won the race for the touchdown after a neat Wallace grubber kick.
Wallace added a couple of penalties in the opening period, but Stade had already scored three tries, all converted by the indomitable Diego Dominguez who finished with 18 points to pump up his European Cup record to 502.
After opening up with a brace of penalties, Dominguez then converted tries by prop Sylvain Marconnet, Fabien Galthie and debutant Sylvain Jonnet - a name to look out for in the future.
Ulster huffed and puffed after the break to good effect, but were never close to scoring. Dominguez popped over two more penalties midway through the game and then watched from the sidelines as Christophe Dominici speared in for try number four.
Ulster will need more than their fantastic backing chorus on the terraces to see them gain revenge next Friday at Ravenhill.
Scoring sequence: 3 min: Dominguez pen, 3-0; 12: Dominguez pen, 6-0; 17 McWhirter try, 6-5; 24: Marconnet try, Dominguez con, 13-5; 28; Galthie Try, Dominguez con, 20-5; 31: Wallace pen, 20-8; 33: Jonmnet try, Dominguez con, 27-8; 35: Wallace pen, 27-11; 55: Dominguez pen, 30-11; 58: Dominguez pen, 33-11; 80: Dominici try, Berthe con, 40-11.
STADE FRAN╟AIS: S Jonnet; C Dominici, F Comba, D Venditti, A Gomes (N Raffault, 70); D Dominguez (J Berthe, 80), F GalthiΘ (M Lajus, 80); S Marconnet, M Blin (B August, 65), P de Villiers (L Emmanuelli, 68), D Auradou, M James, P Tabacco, C Juillet (R Martin, 66), R Pool-Jones (P Rabadan, 66).
ULSTER: B Cunningham; J Topping, S Stewart (S Coulter, 72), J Bell (A Larkin, 55), T Howe; P Wallace, N Doak (B Free, 67); J Fitzpatrick (C Boyd, 70), P Shields, S Best, P Johns (G Longwell, 57), M Blair, T McWhirter (N McMillan, 70), R Nelson, A Ward.
