James Hume: Ulster want to win European Challenge Cup for those who are missing out on the final

Hume’s midfield partner Stuart McCloskey, Ireland winger Jacob Stockdale and the province’s record caps holder Rob Herring are all injured for the clash with Montpellier, while skipper Iain Henderson is suspended.

Not only have a Ulster a chance to win their first trophy in two decades, a victory will see Richie Murphy’s side return to the Champions Cup next season.

“It's gutting for them to not be involved, but ultimately, the Challenge Cup has been a full campaign and they’ve played their part in every single game leading up to this,” stated Hume.

“I wasn't playing in the semi-final against Exeter but Stu did and put in monstrous performance.

“Ultimately, that kind of gets us to where we are now and then he's out, I'm in, it's just unfortunately the way rugby goes sometimes...but we're fully aware of how grim that is for those lads who have been around this squad for so long.

“So, ultimately, you'd want to win silverware for them to put it on their record as well.”

Hume belongs to a generation of Ulster players that have got close to winning silverware but ultimately failed.

He scored Ulster’s only try in the 2020 Pro14 final against Leinster and had to watch the Stormers kick a injury-time conversion to win a semi-final two years later.

He reflected: “I've fallen short a couple of times and 2022 was a killer. I thought when we lost that semi-final, that we would’ve had a home final to the Bulls as we were playing really, really good rugby that year.

"I thought that was a huge opportunity to win, so that still haunts me to this day.

“Obviously, the Covid one was a bit different because it was just a straight semi-final and then a final with no fans and stuff, it wasn't like this kind of atmosphere round it.

“So, absolutely buzzing getting to play in what looks like an unbelievable football stadium. Hopefully, the grass will be like a carpet, it'll be a bit different so, yeah, absolutely buzzing getting over there.

“I think 2020 was weird for me because that was just when I was starting to, like, trying to put my marker down as 13.

“Ultimately, from a personal side, you come out of a final like that and it's like, oh, he seems like he's got it and then that puts me forward for being in the starting team pretty much for the rest of the next season because I show I can do it at that level.

“But ultimately, there was a chance to win silverware there and we didn't, so yeah it hurt still as well, but I just think with the no fans thing, it was so quick.

“I remember it being like straight into a semi and then straight into a final with no fans, no real build-up to it and stuff it wasn't the same as this week.”

However, Hume feels Ulster have learnt from those past failures.

“We have a completely different game at the minute, completely different game plan, the way we run our shapes the accuracy and stuff in our shapes,” he continued.

“Like, back then, it was just like kind of carry, carry, take an edge, but now, there's a lot more to it and it's mad to think that the game has changed that much in like three years.

“So, there's like stepping stones along that way in the past five years where you introduce shape, you try to learn it, you realise that's not the way we should be running it.

“Then Mark Sexton comes in with a new way and then you have to adapt to that and I feel like across this season, there's times where ultimately you see us score wonder tries and you see us score great team tries and take space.

“That's us nailing what we're trying to do but then you go like Scarlets away, Ospreys away, where we're just not doing it right. Ultimately, you come out of it with a loss and I feel like that's maybe what's happened to us this second half of the season. We just haven't nailed the stuff that we've been nailing at the start of the season.

“So, you know, we understand what we've done wrong, hopefully, we put it right this weekend.”