After three trying weeks on the road, Ulster return home to the prospect of the biggest crowd of the season at Ravenhill buoyed further by the timely fillip of last week's win in Ebbw Vale. All told, Harry Williams's team have every reason to believe that this return meeting with the crack French outfit will be nothing like as one-sided as the collision of three weeks ago.

After all, to start with the blindingly obvious, Toulouse are French. While the inaugural European Cup winners have been in fairly ruthless form this season, winning all eight matches, as is indicative of French sides, their away form has been nothing like as clinical. Whereas their average winning margin over four games in Stade Les Sept Deniers has been 48 points, away from home the average is 16 points.

That trend was maintained last week when they pulled themselves together from a 25-8 deficit away to Edinburgh Reivers to win by 29-25. As Ulster had previously only been denied victory over the Reivers by Duncan Hodge's injury-time drop goal, Ulster are entitled to draw a promising barometer.

It could be that last week's scare in Edinburgh was a timely jolt for Toulouse, if not so timely for Ulster, and certainly their coach, Guy Noves, seems to have taken that on board. "We had to dig deep into our mental reserves to win the game and no-one should write off any of the teams participating in this year's tournament.

"I am never confident before playing a match and let's say I am very conscious of the difficulty we will have in Ireland. We played Ulster at home and they are a very defensive team and we will go over there determined to win."

Possibly betraying a hint of over-confidence, Noves added: "I think that Toulouse have almost qualified for the quarter-finals, so I reckon that we will use the players who have not played so far."

To that end, Noves has made seven changes from the side which beat Edinburgh (and six from that which beat Ulster). Despite injuries to Marc Lievremont and Christian Califano, the starting line-up still contains six French internationals, while it is a statement of their strength in depth that a further quartet of internationals are on the bench. Ulster, for their part, look eminently stronger than was the case three weeks ago. Now with Andy Ward and Allen Clarke up front, as well as Rab Irwin and Mark Blair, and Stephen Bell at scrumhalf, the requisite improvement was visible in Ebbw Vale last week. Alongside a big parochial crowd and a Scottish referee, Ulster have enough good players in their ranks to fluster the French. Indeed, with Simon Mason in prolific form, it would be no surprise if Ulster were even ahead at the 40 or 60 minute mark - or at any rate still competitive in the match. "Yes, we can win," said Williams yesterday, "so long as the players believe that."

Therein lies the rub, for you'd have to wonder whether Ulster really do have that belief. What's more, their defence has been a bit porous of late, conceding 21 tries in their last five games, which could be an ominous portent against a side which has scored 21 tries in three Euro games.

Ulster: S Mason; S Coulter, J Bell, C van Rensberg, J Cunningham; D Humphreys (capt), S Bell; J Fitzpatrick, A Clarke, R Irwin, M Blair, G Longwell, S McKinty, T McWhirter, A Ward. Replacements: A Park, B Cunningham, A Matchett, R Weir, G Leslie, D Topping, S Duncan.

Toulouse: S Ougier; P Lapoutge, R Paillat, C Desbrousse, M Marfaing; Y Delaigue, J Cazalbou (capt); C Vencheri, W Servat, J-L Jordana, N Spanghero, F belot, D Lacroix, C Labit, S Dispagne. Replacements: C Deylaud, E N'tamack, Y Bru, F Pelous, P Soula, F Tournaire.