Kriel leads in the absence of Burger Odendaal, who suffered a head injury last Saturday.

Tiaan Swanepoel gets his chance at pivot, while Matt More will be starting in the midfield after touring with the squad in September last year. Exciting prospects PJ Steenkamp and Quan Horn are also in line to make their Vodacom URC debuts off the bench.

Disappointed with his team’s outing at Emirates Airline Park last week, Van Rooyen is adamant they have the ability to up the ante against their neighbours from across the Jukskei River: “Both players and management had difficult conversations post the Bulls fixture and we felt that a better showing was required if we wanted to be competitive this week.

“We felt our scrums and mauls were a highlight for us against the Bulls so it’s something we would like to capitalise on come Saturday.”

On the changes to the team, Van Rooyen said: “It’s an opportunity once again for others to step up and show us what they can do on the big stage. We spoke last week about chances and how we as a group pride ourselves in creating these kinds of opportunities for players.”

Kick-off is at 15h00 and the game will be televised live on SuperSport.

Emirates Lions: 15 Divan Rossouw, 14 Stean Pienaar, 13 Manuel Rass, 12 Matt More, 11 Edwill van der Merwe, 10 Tiaan Swanepoel, 9 Andre Warner, 8 Francke Horn, 7 Emmanuel Tshituka, 6 Jaco Kriel (captain), 5 Ruben Schoeman, 4 Ruhan Straeuli, 3 Carlu Sadie, 2 PJ Botha, 1 Sti Sithole. Replacements: 16 Morne Brandon, 17 Morgan Naude, 18 Ruan Dreyer, 19 Ruan Venter, 20 PJ Steenkamp, 21 Morne van den Berg, 22 EW Viljoen 23 Quan Horn.