For most teams reaching a domestic semi-final and a European quarter-final would constitute a major success but Ulster's ambitions have soared in recent years to such an extent that this season is almost viewed as a disappointment.
The northernmost of the Irish rugby provinces does have one PRO12 and one Heineken Cup title to its name and a proud history stretching back 135 years but you only have to look back a few years to find it finishing in the bottom three of its domestic league in three consecutive seasons, so the rise in aspirations and even expectations has been a steep one.
The last of those three barren campaigns was punctuated by a change at the very top of the club midway through it as Shane Logan became Ulster's new chief executive and the changes both on and off the field since then have been remarkable.
Three domestic top four finishes, one Heineken Cup final and three European quarter-finals have followed, together with an upgrading of the stadium to increase its capacity by over 60 per cent to 18,000, but Logan insists the club is only halfway there and there is much, much more to come.
“On the pitch and off it we are maybe at five out of 10 at present though and we might be rising to six, so we are not complacent and we have a big distance to travel,” he told Running Rugby.
“We want to be a leading European rugby region. We want to be consistently in the top four in Europe and at the top end of our league. We also want to grow our playing numbers from 35,000 to 45,000 and we want to make sure that the game is absolutely thriving in clubs and schools because without that we don't have a rugby watching or playing public.”
Ulster may be ambitious under Logan in terms of both grassroots rugby as a branch of the IRFU and professional rugby but, with a varied business background working for Coca Cola in Russia and as CEO of the Royal National Institute of the Blind, it is clear that his long-term vision for the club is far from a pipe dream and is based on a broad analysis of the potential of the region as a whole.
“There are two million people in Ulster, so in our view that gives us the necessary population to grow the game and to generate a large number of international calibre players who will play for Ireland and Ulster – and that is one of our main reasons for being,” he said.
“We are in the very fortunate position that, because we a separate geographical region, we have all rugby within that region and that means we are able to pull everybody together and that is what we want to do.
“Whether that is government, media, business, supporters, players, clubs, schools, if we can have a pyramid where every part of it reinforces every other part of the pyramid, that is what success looks like for us.”
Despite that large population, Ulster's average attendance was languishing at around 8,000 as recently as the 2011/12 season. That figure has almost doubled to 13,402 this season and should grow significantly again in the next campaign with the redevelopment of Ravenhill complete.
It will take a while to see a return on the investment in the stadium, which began with one new stand in 2009 costing over £5m and housing over 500 premium seats and 20 boxes and ended with over £16m being spent on the three other stands between late 2012 and April this year, but it certainly seems to have been money well spent.
“The total investment in the stadium is around £23 million and we have been very fortunate in receiving substantial government backing to invest in the stadium rather than having to borrow and invest ourselves,” Logan told Running Rugby.
“We have the ability here to improve from an average crowd of around 7,000 to 8,000 a few years ago to 18,000 and therefore to more than double our commercial revenues. That won't be easy but the market potential is there.
“In the two games that we have had full capacity for this year – the Heineken Cup quarter final and our game against Leinster – we could have filled the stadium many times over, so the latent demand is there.
“Moving forward it allows us to double our gate income if we can fill the stadium and it is where we are housing the professional team and we have exceptional training facilities now within the stadium.”
Ravenhill is used for a variety of domestic and regional finals as well as by the professional outfit and the plan is to take every child in the province to the stadium and The Nevin Spence Centre, its museum and education centre named after the club's centre who died tragically in a farming accident in September 2012, twice during their school life.
Logan believes that Ulster now has an “iconic venue” that symbolises the ambition of the club and is capable of playing a major part in the winning of the hearts and minds of the region as it seeks to grow the number of players and fans.
And it is belief that he points to as being one of the most important factors in lifting the province from the lower reaches of the PRO12 table to the point where nothing short of being among the very elite of European rugby is considered a success.
“I think belief has been key. People didn't believe we could sell out an 18,000 capacity stadium and people didn't believe we could be competing at the upper end of competitions,” he said.
“We were in the nether regions of the league and we were struggling to qualify for Heineken Cup rugby, so I think people were fairly deflated but historically Ulster have produced big and probably disproportionate numbers of Lions and international players and had significant provincial success.
“The key was to make sure that we had the right people doing the right things and the best people doing the best things. Sometimes in sport people look for the latest fad rather than the best performance management and I think that is more important than the amount of money you have.
“The single most important thing to get right was the performance of the professional team. Without an excellent product people won't pay to come and watch you. To have an improving team and better performance is just 60 per cent of the equation though and unless we are selling it effectively and targeting different segments of the market more effectively and providing a better experience in a better stadium it isn't complete.
“We went through exactly the same process with our commercial staff as we did in the professional game, so we made sure we had a good, strong plan and good quality people doing their best in terms of selling.”
It stands to reason that a more successful side will draw bigger crowds but Logan has also managed to oversee such a dramatic increase in attendances despite putting ticket prices up by around a third very early on in his tenure.
Some would say he must have the magic touch to get the paying public to willingly part with a lot more of their hard-earned money to watch their rugby each week but the man himself says it was a simple equation and one that the fans understood.
“I held several meetings with season ticket holders – and I think at that stage there were around 3,000 – and told them that we were too cheap and that if they wanted a cheap team, we could stay at the same prices but if they wanted a competitive team, then they had to pay competitive prices on the gate. Generally that went down well and we only had to do that once right at the start,” he said.
“Our underlying season ticket growth is very substantial and that is looking very promising for next year, so we have taken a good, strong stride towards being able to fill the stadium next season.”
Combine a full, expanded stadium with a full arsenal of sponsors, an improved European agreement and an improved television deal for next season and just about every area of Ulster's commercial operations is on the up.
“We have been able to achieve significant growth in sponsorship over the last few years and I think there is more to come. We are in the fortunate position of demand being greater than our ability to supply in sponsorship as well as in box sales and ticket sales. So, there is scarcity which increases value and it is a good situation that is getting stronger,” Logan said.
“We do not negotiate the television agreements directly but I think we have a much better set of arrangements moving forwards and the big benefit of television is that it helps to spread the game as well as bringing money in.
“There will be a growth in direct financial return and I think through the years it will grow more as well. However, the main benefit in the next two to three years will be allowing us to grow the numbers of players and volunteers and people interested in the game.
“I think the structures that have been agreed within Europe, which now influence the Pro12 in terms of qualification, are a really good thing. I think our league is highly competitive and this adds a real edge to every game, particularly at the end of the season, so that is to be welcomed.
“I think it is a good agreement and it does what it set out to do. It generates the potential to grow revenue and it creates two very competitive competitions.”
The luck of the Irish may have deserted them this season, losing by two points to Saracens in the Heineken Cup quarter-final after playing for 75 minutes with 14 men, but at the deep end of the premier of those two competitions is where Ulster now believe they belong.
And Logan's admission that the club is “disappointed not to have gone further” both in Europe and in the PRO12 this season is confirmation that the bar is now set very high in Belfast.
“As a minimum, it was fine but we are setting ourselves high expectations and we would have liked to have done more in both competitions and we will be aiming to do more going forwards,” he said.
“This has been a good year but it hasn't been an excellent year and we are striving for excellence every year.”