Wellington - Record Hurricanes points scorer Beauden Barrett will return to the starting XV for Friday's Super Rugby match against the Brumbies in Palmerston North.
Barrett, who has scored 1 120 points in 113 matches for the Hurricanes, has yet to feature in 2019 but will add a wealth of experience and excitement to the squad.
His return is one of seven changes Hurricanes head coach John Plumtree has made to the starting side from last week's match against the Crusaders.
Vice-captain and fellow centurion TJ Perenara returns at scrumhalf after coming off the bench against the Crusaders.
Ngani Laumape will get the opportunity to run out in his home province while Chase Tiatia will make his Hurricanes debut at fullback in place of Jordie Barrett who drops out of the matchday 23.
Plumtree told the Hurricanes' official website that the 23-year-old has worked extremely hard throughout the pre-season programme and impressed for the Hurricanes Hunters in the last fortnight.
Up front, Ardie Savea returns to the loose forward trio at No 8 in place of Gareth Evans who has suffered a calf injury, while Vaea Fifita will wear the No 6 jersey.
Fifita's return follows a strong 50-minute effort for the Hunters in last week's win over the Crusaders Knights in Christchurch.
The other change in the pack is at tighthead prop where the evergreen Ben May starts with Jeff To'omaga-Allen set to feature off the bench.
Plumtree said the squad was desperate to put in a better performance than the one against the Crusaders in what will be their first home match in 2019.
"We want to improve a lot of aspects of our play and hopefully we can do that in front of what will be a great crowd in Palmy.
"We were really impressed with the performance the Brumbies put out last week so we know the scale of task ahead of us but it's a great challenge for the squad."
Kick-off is at 08:35 (SA time) on Friday.
Teams:
Hurricanes
15 Chase Tiatia, 14 Vince Aso, 13 Matt Proctor, 12 Ngani Laumape, 11 Ben Lam, 10 Beauden Barrett, 9 TJ Perenara, 8 Ardie Savea, 7 Du’Plessis Kirifi, 6 Vaea Fifita, 5 Liam Mitchell, 4 James Blackwell, 3 Ben May, 2 Dane Coles (captain), 1 Chris Eves
Substitutes: 16 Ricky Riccitelli, 17 Xavier Numia, 18 Jeff To’omaga-Allen, 19 Isaia Walker-Leawere, 20 Reed Prinsep, 21 Richard Judd, 22 Jackson Garden-Bachop, 23 Wes Goosen
Brumbies
TBA
