Saracens v London Wasps - Aviva Premiership match preview
Charlie Hodgson returns to the Saracens side to face London Wasps in Sunday's Aviva Premiership clash at Vicarage Road.
Last Updated: 04/11/12 1:03pm
It will be high-flying Saracens' first match of the season in Watford having previously enjoyed home matches at Twickenham, Wembley Stadium and in Brussels.
Hodgson returns at No.10 while Chris Wyles, James Short and Kameli Ratuvou come into the backline. In the forwards, Matt Stevens switches to loosehead prop while Carlos Nieto starts at tighthead.
Schalk Brits, who joins up with the South African touring squad after the match, is named at hooker. Ernst Joubert and Andy Saull make up the back row along with new Scotland captain Kelly Brown.
Owen Farrell, Brad Barritt, Chris Ashton, Mouritz Botha, Alex Goode and Mako Vunipola are unavailable due to England call-ups. Rhys Gill misses the game through injury.
Meanwhile, London Wasps have made five changes to the starting line-up which defeated London Welsh with a bonus point last weekend, in what was a fourth consecutive win for Wasps.
There is a new centre pairing in Chris Bell and Elliot Daly, with Lee Thomas unfortunately missing out with a dead leg, while Andrea Masi, who has been in Italy, national team training for much of this week, is named in the replacements. Charlie Davies comes in at scrum-half for the injured Joe Simpson in the other change in the backs, while up front T Rhys Thomas starts at hooker and James Haskell returns, having missed last week with illness, to start in the number seven shirt.
Saracens: 15 Chris Wyles, 14 David Strettle, 13 Joel Tomkins, 12 Kameli Ratuvou, 11 James Short, 10 Charlie Hodgson, 9 Richard Wigglesworth, 8 Ernst Joubert, 7 Andy Saull, 6 Kelly Brown, 5 Alistair Hargreaves, 4 Steve Borthwick (c), 3 Carlos Nieto, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Matt Stevens.
Replacements: 16 John Smit, 17 Nick Auterac, 18 Petrus du Plessis, 19 George Kruis, 20 Will Fraser, 21 Neil de Kock, 22 Nils Mordt, 23 Joe Maddock.
London Wasps: 15 Hugo Southwell (c), 14 Tom Varndell, 13 Elliot Daly, 12 Chris Bell, 11 Christian Wade, 10 Nick Robinson, 9 Charlie Davies, 8 Billy Vunipola, 7 James Haskell, 6 Ashley Johnson, 5 Marco Wentzel, 4 Joe Launchbury, 3 Zak Taulafo, 2 T Rhys Thomas, 1 Tim Payne.
Replacements: 16 Tom Lindsay, 17 Phil Swainston, 18 Simon McIntyre, 19 James Cannon, 20 Jonathan Poff, 21 Jonah Holmes, 22 Tommy Bell, 23 Andrea Masi.
What they said...
Wasps boss Dai Young
"While it's good to be heading to play Saracens with some momentum behind us, we're not under any illusions as to how much improvement we will have to make this weekend.
"They will be missing a few players but to be honest, they have such a good squad that we know the guys coming in will be doing everything they can to stake a claim to the shirt. They are a side who know how to win and we need to step up massively to take anything out of the game."