Friday 21 November 2014 16:22, UK
Aviva Premiership high-flyers Exeter and Bath are both in action on Saturday with the Chiefs playing host to Wasps while Bath take a trip to face London Irish.
Exeter go into the eighth round of matches in second place in the table and in great spirits after beating leaders Northampton last week to close to within just two bonus points of the table toppers.
The game will mark the 100th league appearance for full-back Phil Dollman, who earlier this week committed his future to the Chiefs by agreeing a new two-year deal.
Chiefs boss Rob Baxter has stuck with an almost unchanged match-day squad for Saturday's showdown. The sole change comes in the pack where Dave Ewers returns after missing last week's win and comes in at blindside flanker for Ben White.
"The truth is I'm a little concerned going into this weekend," said Baxter. "History has shown this season that we haven't bounced through good performances very well. By that I mean, our last victory against a top four, top five side was Harlequins, yet we then followed it up with one of our poorer performances when we went to Newcastle the following week.”
Meanwhile, Wasps boss Dai Young has made three changes to his starting side including James Haskell being ruled out having been named to start for England against Samoa and replaced by Sam Jones.
The other two changes see Bradley Davies and Lorenzo Cittadini return to the side, after appearing for their countries in recent weeks, to take starting spots in black and gold.
On the bench, Guy Thompson gets a place among the substitutes as back row cover and Charlie Davies returns from injury to take a place on the bench as the replacement scrum half.
Conor Gilsenan, Shane Geraghty and Scott Steele return to the London Irish starting line-up as they host Bath – who come into the weekend in third place and level on points with Exeter and Saracens.
Tom Court, David Paice and Halani Aulika make up the Irish front row with George Skivington and Sean Cox in the second row. Luke Narraway and Tom Guest join Gilsenan in the back row.
Chris Noakes and Scott Steele form the half-back pairing with Shane Geraghty and Fergus Mulchrone in the centre. Topsy Ojo, Alex Lewington and Andrew Fenby make up the back three.
Meanwhile, Bath have been boosted by the return of England backs Kyle Eastmond and Semesa Rokoduguni.
Inside centre Eastmond starts alongside Jonathan Joseph in the midfield, with Rokoduguni returning to the wing opposite number 11 Matt Banahan. Luke Arscott completes the back three at full-back.
Micky Young and Gavin Henson are half-back partners for the fourth time this season. They will play from a platform provided by front row Nathan Catt, Ross Batty and Henry Thomas - all of whom started in last weekend's victory against Newcastle Falcons.
Captain Stuart Hooper and Dominic Day are in the second row together for the first time since the opening match of the season against Sale Sharks. Another first sees blindside Matt Garvey make his first start of 2014/15 following an injury during pre-season. David Sisi is at openside with Leroy Houston continuing at number eight.
The Exiles need a good result after slipping to three straight Premiership defeats, but Bath may not be the ideal opposition for them to bounce back as they’ve only won one of the last nine games between the two.
