Last summer Tyrone Howe's view of his rugby career was panoramic. From the Lions' hotel in Australia he could see from one side of the horizon, the Olympic Stadium in Sydney, to the other at Lansdowne Road. With justification Howe believed there was some security to his place on the Irish squad. Denis Hickie, after all, was back in Dublin.

A few months later and back in Belfast the spare winger was peering from the outside in to the Irish set-up. The summer of promise had become an autumn of relative despair and impressing Ireland coach Warren Gatland following the frustrating Lions gallop had become a harder task than catching the eye of Graham Henry.

One tour start against the Cockatoos in an overall forgettable match coupled with Ireland's soaring win over England last week with Hickie and Shane Horgan on the flanks and Howe has found himself back with Ulster, seemingly starting all over again. It is a place he has visited before.

"Yes, maybe there was a slight downer after the summer but between injury and selection my rugby career has been a bit up and down. The last few months sort of sums it up," he says. "I'm probably a bit more reflective now than I was six or seven years ago but after last season I can't complain.

"If the selections made higher up work then you can have no complaints. It's a difficult position to be in. Ireland beating England last week was a good thing. We are all in the same boat in wanting Ireland to do well and wanting the team to be consistent performers. Sometimes you are a winner in that set-up and sometimes you lose out.

"There is always going to be competition. That's fundamental and that's the way I think it has to be. But I still feel ambition and now I've got to put in a few big performances to catch the selectors' eyes."

It didn't help that Munster and Leinster were quickly at altitude this season while Ulster were struggling to get off the ground. The general focus may have sharpened on the winning sides and in Gatland's ratings Howe is at best fifth in line for an 11 or 14 Irish shirt if Gordon D'Arcy is considered a winger and not a full back.

"At the beginning Ulster struggled while the other provinces were superb," says Howe. "The natural knock-on is that those players get into the representative scene."

At 30 Howe doesn't have the time of Horgan, Hickie or Geordan Murphy but despite his years, his chronological rugby age is shorter and fresher than most.

Out with a chronic hip injury for two years, his captaincy of the Oxford Blues against Cambridge in 1995 and rehabilitation at the beginning of 1999 book-ended an arid spell which almost deprived him of a rugby career.

During that time Howe left the London Irish club and took a job teaching in one of the top public schools in England, Marlborough College. He didn't even watch the game, his only contact coaching the under-15 school team.

It left a sizeable gap to fill and some catching up to do but during that period his body moved at a gentle pace. At that time he also faced up to the prospect of perhaps never playing the game again.

"It was a grieving process for something that had been so central to my life. It affected my work and my personal life in several ways," he told this newspaper last season. "I certainly faced the prospect of not playing again but there was a niggle at the back of my mind that if I could just get back to some level of rugby it would give me satisfaction."

Close friend David Humphreys turned the ear of Harry Williams and the European Cup-winning Ulster coach found himself at a third division match at Newbury watching Howe on the wing. That was enough. Williams came and went and now Alan Solomons has taken Howe and the Ulster team on. A win against Stade Francais today in the European Cup Pool Two gives them a chance to pave the way into the quarter-final.

Pre-competition estimates put the quarter-final qualifying figure at nine points, or, three home wins and an away win. Ulster have garnered two home wins and trail Stade Francais on points difference.

"We've done a lot of analysis on the opposition," says Howe. "Our game will be tailored on how they play but our pattern won't change much. I think they will expect to beat us handsomely. We beat them last time they were in Belfast so there will be a touch of revenge involved.

"They will try to be physical in the pack and the set-pieces and Diego Dominguez is a good play-maker which will give them various options. We are aware of his kicking ability but it will be very physical and we will have to have discipline. If we can stay disciplined and stay close they might show indiscipline. And they know with David (Humphreys) that we've one of the best place-kickers in rugby at the moment."

Playing with Humphreys at outhalf clearly has its merits. But given his kicking ability, Howe's chances of seeing much of the ball in running phases are again unlikely.

Against Wasps at Ravenhill, Neil Doak's crisp deliveries from scrumhalf set up a Humphreys road show in both finding touch and in scoring four drop goals. Howe received little if any first-phase ball but still used his explosive pace to run a wayward Wasps kick up his wing to score Ulster's second try.

"We've moved from a fairly rocky Celtic League start to now. We've won our last five matches. We feel well prepared and the confidence is high," he says.

His outlook for his career remains optimistic and unbroken. Howe has come back from darker places. He needs only look around at the recent Irish team, to players such as Eric Miller and even Humphreys, to see how careers pivot on a moment. An old head maybe but new horizons are still in his sights.