Melbourne have lost Wallabies Matt Toomua and Reece Hodge for their Super Rugby clash with the Sharks in Ballarat on Saturday afternoon after both were ruled out with groin injuries.
Five-eighth Toomua has been replaced by Andrew Deegan while Andrew Kellaway will start in place of Hodge, who will be sidelined for up to six weeks after limping off early in their win over the Waratahs.
Toomua is likely to return next round but Rebels coach Dave Wessels said Deegan, who had been playing Global Rapid Rugby with the Western Force, offered similar strengths.
“‘He has actually got the ability to play quite similar to Matt, he’s got a very good kicking game, he likes to take on the line in his running game and he is quite and experienced player,” Wessels said.
“Probably one of the reasons why we recruited him is so we’ve got two very similar 10s and we can build a game plan around guys who play a similar way and it doesn’t impact the team too much when you have to make changes as we have had to do this week.”
In other changes Steve Misa will start at hooker with Anaru Rangi on the bench, with Wessels saying injured Test rake Jordan Uelese wasn’t far off being available for selection.
The Rebels beat the Durban-based Sharks on their last visit to Melbourne in 2018 but that was their only success in seven matches.
Wessels said the Sharks, who have won two of their opening three rounds, would bring plenty of strike power in their back three, most notably Springboks winger Makazole Mapimpi.
But he believed that the Rebels were up to containing them.
“They will come with a lot of confidence and will bring some things they’ve adopted from the Springboks,” he said.
“We’re fortunate in that we have some firepower in those areas as well, you know guys like Marika (Koroibete), Dane (Haylett-Petty) and that sort of thing,” he said.
“We need to figure out how we isolate those guys and force them to do some of the things in the game that they don’t really want to do.
“If you allow them to get their tails up and do the things they do want to do, they enjoy that so our job is to try and make that difficult for them.”
Wessels said it was important to consolidate on last week’s win.
“If we can play well again this week then our season has really got some wind behind it.”
Rebels: Dane Haylett-Petty (capt), Andrew Kellaway, Campbell Magnay, Billy Meakes, Marika Koroibete, Andrew Deegan, Ryan Louwrens, Isi Naisarani, Richard Hardwick, Michael Wells, Matt Philip, Ross Haylett-Petty, Jermaine Ainsley, Steven Misa, Matt Gibbon. Res: Anaru Rangi, Cameron Orr, Ruan Smith, Gideon Koegelenberg, Angus Cottrell, Rob Leota, Frank Lomani, Tom English.