Loose forward Jannes Kirsten returns to the Exeter Chiefs' bench to face his former teammates in their Heineken Champions’ Cup match against the Vodacom Bulls at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.
Kirsten is one of two changes to the side, and may well find himself permanently back at Loftus Versfeld next season after it was reported he would be leaving the Chiefs at the end of this season.
England’s Luke Cowan-Dickie is injured and replaced by Jack Innard in the other change while the absence of Stuart Hogg means that Josh Hodge will be at fullback for the clash.
Exeter have won both their opening fixtures and are now looking for a rare away win in South Africa to try and get a top seeding. According to Director of Rugby Rob Baxter, they feel they have acclimatised to the heat and altitude well.
“Playing at 7:30pm over here, the temperature will be a lot cooler than what we’ve experienced at other times of the day,” explained Baxter.
“Equally, we’ve been here a week now and again we’ve acclimatised to the conditions pretty well. For us, the focus is on coming over here and building on what has been a very strong start to our Heineken Champions Cup campaign.
“We’ve had two fantastic results against Castres away and then the Bulls at home, but now we have to build on that this weekend. It will be tough, there is no doubt about that, and we’re expecting a much different Bulls side that came to us last month. That was a pretty mixed squad they sent, but this will be pretty much full-on.
“For our lads, it’s a fantastic opportunity to create something special again. We’ve talked all week about what we will need to do, how strong we will need to be, plus the fight we will need to show. Getting a result would be fantastic, but equally anything positive we can take from the game will be very important. We’ve seen in the past that if you pick up bonus points, they can really mean something later in the competition.
“That means having that focus across the whole 80 minutes has to be there. If we do, it will give us the best footing into the game, and then we can start later and really impose ourselves on the Bulls.”
Exeter Chiefs: Josh Hodge; Jack Nowell, Henry Slade (captain), Solomone Kata, Olly Woodburn; Joe Simmonds, Sam Maunder; Sam Simmonds, Christ Tshiunza, Dave Ewers, Dafydd Jenkins, Jack Dunne, Harry Williams, Jack Innard, Scott Sio.
Replacements: Jack Yeandle, James Kenny, Josh Iosefa-Scott, Jannes Kirsten, Greg Fisilau, Jack Maunder, Harvey Skinner, Rory O’Loughlin.