The Melbourne Rebels welcome back star flyhalf Jack Debreczeni and lock Steve Cummins for their round two clash against the Bulls in Pretoria, as the franchise searches for its first ever win in South Africa.

Debreczeni has recovered from an illness that kept him out of last week’s game against the Force, while Cummins makes his first appearance of 2016.

Lopeti Timani moves to No.8 and Adam Thomson to blindside flanker to make way for Cummins, while Jordy Reid moves to the bench. Two try hero Reece Hodge will start at fullback in place of Mike Harris who will miss 10-12 weeks with a quad injury.

The Rebels have been hit early by injuries to key players this season. In addition to Harris, Colby Fainga’a is set to miss up to six weeks with a strained elbow and Nic Strizaker is still recovering from shoulder surgery.

Despite that, Rebels coach Tony McGahan remained positive about the team’s ability to handle the injuries.

“We were floored by both injuries to be honest.

“Everyone’s going to go through them at some stage. We’re really lucky, we’ve got really good depth.

“If we can navigate our way through this next period we’ve got a lot of good players and a lot of freshness that’ll come back to the group.”

McGahan expects a straight-forward approach from the Bulls this week.

“I suspect with a couple of injuries from the weekend we’ll see them go to a very traditional high ball, more set-piece game this week so that’s what we’re planning for.

If they get the ball out wide we had a really good test out on defence last week against the Force with them trying to play edge to edge.”

The Rebels are seeking their first win in South Africa and captain Sean McMahon sees that as a motivating factor for the team.

“Yeah definitely we only get one opportunity this year. The Bulls are a great physical side so it’s going to be a really big test for us. The team is training well so I think there’s a big opportunity for us to chase the first win over here”

Experience could be the key according to McGahan.

“I think the mindset of the group is good, certainly with a bit more experience around. Blokes like Ellison, Thomson and Hanson, who have traveled here numerous times over a long period of time give the group strong belief about what we can do.

“We’re really excited about the game, we’ve talked about it, we’ve had mention of it in the preseason, we’ve had a keen alertness to what’s open to us this weekend playing the Bulls.

“These milestones are important and as a young club we need to continue to gather them as we go. A win over here would be a huge injection at the club.

“Pretoria is a fantastic place to play rugby, great tradition, great history, great crowd and a really physical brand of rugby so we need the right mindset to match that.”

Melbourne Rebels team to face Bulls

Toby Smith, James Hanson, Laurie Weeks, Luke Jones, Steve Cummins, Adam Thomson, Sean McMahon (captain), Lopeti Timani, Ben Meehan, Jack Debreczeni, Tom English, Mitch Inman, Tamati Ellison, Dom Shipperley, Reece Hodge. Reserves: Pat Leafa, Cruze Ah Nau, Jamie Hagan, Sam Jeffries, Jordy Reid, Mick Snowden, Jonah Placid, Dan Hawkins.