ULSTER HAVE BEEN rocked by injuries to Stuart McCloskey and Zac Ward as they bid to halt a five-game losing streak at Connacht on Saturday.

Ireland centre McCloskey may be sidelined for a potentially lengthy period due to the hamstring injury picked up in last weekend’s defeat to Munster and could now even be a doubt for Ireland’s Six Nations campaign which begins on February 1 when England visit Dublin.

“Stuart has a significant hamstring injury and will miss at this stage quite a large number of weeks,” said Murphy whose side are now 11th in the URC table, one place behind Connacht.

“We’re not sure exactly what that (timeframe) is, but we won’t see him for the next good few weeks.”

Winger Zac Ward shipped an ankle issue against Munster and Murphy said that a call on his fitness will be made later this week.

Nick Timoney, Ben Carson and Nathan Doak will be available as should Cormac Izuchukwu while it is unclear if Iain Henderson, Ethan McIlroy and Jake Flannery will be with an already injury-hit squad.

Meanwhile, Murphy could well have his two sons facing off in Saturday’s interprovincial, Ben for Connacht and the younger Jack for Ulster after the latter debuted last Friday against Munster.

“Christmas Day will be very interesting because we’re all getting together spending it and most of St Stephen’s Day together,” said Murphy.

In terms of potentially letting slip any inside information, Murphy said: “Ben won’t tell us, we won’t be telling him.

“It’ll be good to spend a bit of time with the family. We’re very proud of the two lads, they work very hard at their craft, and we’ll see what happens at the weekend.”

“It’s more of a sideshow for my wife,” he added of the family’s provincial divisions. “She’s the one that has to deal with all three of us. I haven’t been a very happy husband over the last couple of weeks,” he said of Ulster’s recent dismal run.

Murphy continued:

“There are plenty of sleepless nights and getting up early and trying to work things out, I think when I came in last year, I almost felt we got lucky with a couple of wins and we kind of feel we’re on the other side of that now.

“We’re not a million miles away, 14 men for 50 minutes (against Munster) I think we were the better side, but we lost. Ultimately we have to get over the line and win those ones.”