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Cape Town - Dane Coles, Beauden Barrett and Nehe Milner-Skudder have been named to start the Hurricanes first home match of the Super Rugby season against the Rebels at Westpac Stadium on Saturday.
The star trio are among four personnel changes to the Hurricanes team that ran out against the Sunwolves in Week 1, the other being the elevation of Reed Prinsep to No 8 in place of the injured Blade Thomson.
Hurricanes hooker and captain Coles and flyhalf Barrett swap places with Ricky Riccitelli and Otere Black respectively after coming off the reserves during the team's 83-17 win in Tokyo.
Milner-Skudder has recovered from the hamstring strain that ruled him out of the season opener to replace Jordie Barrett at fullback.
Hurricanes head coach Chris Boyd said the selection of the team had been fairly straight forward with the changes largely part of a plan for the opening two matches of the season.
"Dane and Beauden were always going to come back into the starting team and Nehe would have started Round 1 if he'd been fit, so the selections certainly aren't form related," he said.
"Blade Thomson dislocated his shoulder in Japan and is having scans to determine the severity of his injury, so Reed gets an early chance to stake a claim at the back of the scrum."
Boyd said the challenge for his team was to put their first up result behind them and prepare for a battle against the Rebels.
"We certainly took some positives away from our first match, but I think there is a realisation among the group that this week represents a big step up and we are expecting the Rebels to be highly motivated after their loss to the Blues.
"I know the players are really excited at the prospect of getting out in front of their home crowd for the first time this year."
There are four further changes to the Hurricanes match-day 23 in the reserves where Riccitelli, Black and Jordie Barrett are joined by lock Mark Abbott, who was unavailable for the trip to Japan due to a personal commitment.
Teams:
Hurricanes
15 Nehe Milner-Skudder, 14 Vince Aso, 13 Matt Proctor, 12 Ngani Laumape, 11 Julian Savea, 10 Beauden Barrett, 9 TJ Perenara, 8 Reed Prinsep, 7 Ardie Savea, 6 Brad Shields, 5 Michael Fatialofa, 4 James Blackwell, 3 Jeffery To'omaga-Allen, 2 Dane Coles (captain), 1 Chris Eves
Substitutes: 16 Ricky Riccitelli, 17 Ben May, 18 Mike Kainga, 19 Mark Abbott, 20 Callum Gibbins, 21 Chris Smylie, 22 Otere Black, 23 Jordie Barrett
Rebels
TBA
