Kitshoff out for season & Hume suffers knee injury

Ulster have suffered a double injury setback as Steven Kitshoff's season has been ended by a knee injury while James Hume has also sustained "a significant knee injury".

South Africa prop Kitshoff suffered his injury in the European Challenge Cup quarter-final defeat by Clermont Auvergne and following a scan and specialist opinion it was determined that he had played his last game for the club.

It was announced in early April that Kitshoff would leave the Irish province at the conclusion of the campaign, with the 32-year-old set to rejoin the Stormers.

The double World Cup-winning forward will travel back to his native land this week, where he will see a knee specialist to decide on a treatment plan.

Centre Hume was injured during Friday's United Rugby Championship win over Cardiff and will see a specialist knee surgeon this week.

Jake Flannery (thigh), Tom O'Toole (ankle) and Nathan Doak (groin) also suffered injuries during the win over the Welsh side and their availability for selection for Friday's encounter with Benetton at Kingspan Stadium will be monitored through this week.

'Friday night took its toll'

"Friday night took its toll and we suffered a few injuries," Ulster defence coach Jonny Bell explained at the province's media conference on Tuesday.

"We're gutted about James [Hume] and we wish him a speedy recovery while Steven [Kitshoff] has an MCL injury and that's the end of his time with us.

"Tom [O'Toole] took a bang and we're hoping that's more of a short term thing, hopefully a number of weeks, we don't know exactly, the medical staff will bring that back.

"Jake [Flannery], again it's hard to know, it could be a couple of weeks, it could be a bit longer.

"A significant number of injuries that have hurt us but we've just go to manage with the great group that we have."

Ulster go into their game with Benetton sitting in 10th position in the URC table, three points behind their fifth-placed Italian opponents as both sides chase a top-eight spot which would secure their berth in the end-of-season play-offs.