“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 spot in the end-of-season play-offs.