RUPERT Harden is expected to miss the rest of Gloucester's season, and may require knee ligament surgery.
Gloucester's frontline tighthead damaged knee ligaments in the Cherry and Whites' 31-25 Bath defeat on Friday, March 1.
Rugby director Nigel Davies said Kingsholm medics are yet to complete their full assessment of Harden's injury, but conceded the 27-year-old is unlikely to feature again this term.
Shaun Knight should beat his knee tendon trouble in time to face London Welsh at Kingsholm on Saturday (kick-off 3pm), averting a potential tighthead crisis.
Lamenting Harden's injury, Davies admitted relief at Knight's timely potential return, and the fitness of Dario Chistolini after recent calf trouble too.
Kingsholm boss Davies also revealed Gloucester will look at a long-term plan of converting loosehead prop Yann Thomas into a tighthead – but more for next season than this.
Davies explained: "Rupert probably will be out for a while, we're still assessing that.
"We have to adapt and react to that, we've got players who can step up and who have done all year.
"We've got options and that's not something we haven't planned for, we've got the squad to do it and we've rotated the squad all year.
"It could be the season over, it could be.
"It's not ideal from his perspective but it gives an opportunity to somebody else, and Rupert had played a lot of rugby over the last few fixtures because we didn't really have any cover there.
"Now we've got some cover coming back to support him it doesn't look as though he'll play much of a part in the rest of the season."
South Africa-raised Italy A prop Chistolini has struggled to nudge his way past both Harden and Matson-born Knight this term.
The 24-year-old is out of contract in the summer, and will need to seize this opportunity now by producing some top form in order to secure a new Kingsholm deal.
Davies admitted Chistolini has been hard done by in terms of chances this term – but said now is his time to strike.
The former Wales centre continued: "Dario hasn't had many opportunities, but when he has featured he has done well.
"He came on against Leicester when we were under a lot of pressure, and he actually made an impact in fairness to him.
"So Dario's been a little bit unlucky, maybe this year not having so many opportunities, but that's partly because of the quality of the other players."
Gloucester are still weighing up their tighthead options for next term then, with Chistolini out of contract – and also 22-year-old loosehead Thomas.
Davies has been clear that he wants three first team regulars in each position, so will want six props for next term.
Bristol-born Thomas has impressed at loosehead this season, when deputising for Nick Wood and Dan Murphy.
But Davies said Gloucester will seriously consider taking him through rugby's hardest positional switch, from loose to tighthead prop.
Few props master the switch across the front-row, but Davies believes Thomas has all the raw materials – and has already started testing himself on the technique.
Davies added: "Yann is an option there, and he may be someone we look at to go across to the tighthead.
"He scrummaged very well when we put him at tighthead in training.
"We put him up against both Dan Murphy and Nick Wood, who are both good loosehead scrummagers, and he did very well.
"And he's doing well, he's got good stature and that may be something we look to do.
"He's a big guy, who carries a lot of muscle mass, and he's got awkward shoulders as well, they're not square shoulders, they almost point backwards so it's very difficult for guys to get hold of him in the scrum.
"He's got everything that you need to be a tighthead, so we'll see how it goes; we'll take it softly-softly this year.
"But in the pre-season and going into next year, we'll have a look at it.
"We'll look at our options there for next year anyway; we're still constructing the squad for next year, so we'll see where that takes us."
