Saracens Director of Rugby Alan Gaffney has been given an injury boost ahead of Sunday's trip to Leeds Carnegie with fly half Glen Jackson returning to the squad.
PRA Player of the Year Jackson missed the opening two rounds of the Guinness Premiership with an ankle injury, but he returns for the trip to Headingley and is named on the bench with former Leeds playmaker Gordon Ross retaining the fly half jersey for the game.
In other changes, Kevin Yates gets a first start of the season in the front row while David Seymour comes in for the rested Richard Hill. Paul Gustard gets the chance to start at No.8 while Aaron Liffchak's ability to play on either side of the front row sees him get the nod as the replacement prop.
Injuries to Kevin Sorrell and Dan Scarbrough in the backline see Rodd Penney start at outside centre and Richard Haughton come into the back three alongside Edd Thrower and Francisco Leonelli.
And Gaffney knows his side will face a stern test in Yorkshire on Sunday. He said: "Leeds led Gloucester at half time in their opening match of the season and that's something we couldn't do against the same team last weekend. They will be a very hard side to beat. If we play like we did in the first 20 minutes against Gloucester last weekend then we can put in a good performance, but if we play like we did in the last half of that game we will struggle.
"We know that Leeds will come at us hard and will be looking to get their first points of the season on Sunday. But we have trained well this week and we know that we have to get more accurate with what we are doing. We're creating chances and playing some good rugby which is a massive positive, but we just need to improve in certain areas and that is something we have focused on this week."
15 Francisco Leonelli
14 Richard Haughton
13 Rodd Penney
12 Adam Powell
11 Edd Thrower
10 Gordon Ross
9 Neil de Kock (c)
1 Kevin Yates
2 Matt Cairns
3 Tom Mercey
4 Tom Ryder
5 Hugh Vyvyan
6 Kris Chesney
7 David Seymour
8 Paul Gustard
16 Andy Kyriacou
17 Aaron Liffchak
18 Iain Fullarton
19 Ben Skirving
20 Alan Dickens
21 Glen Jackson
22 Craig McMullen