Marvin Orie and Seabelo Senatla will make their first appearances of the season for the Stormers in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship against the Lions in Cape Town on Saturday.
Springbok Orie was with the national squad for the first four matches of the season, while speedster Senatla makes his return from injury.
Orie starts in the second row alongside captain Salmaan Moerat, who was also part of the Springboks touring squad.
The rest of the forward pack is unchanged from Round 4 when they powered to a 24-10 victory against the Dragons in Newport last month.
Sergeal Petersen, who started the 20-20 stalemate against Edinburgh in Round 3, joins Senatla in a back three completed by fullback Warrick Gelant, while Dan du Plessis and Ruhan Nel line up again in midfield.
Head coach John Dobson said that the Stormers are determined to be at their best in their first home game of the campaign, which will have a limited crowd of 2000 spectators in the stands.
“It has been quite some time since we played in front of our faithful fans, so this will be a special occasion for the team and we want to put up a worthy performance.
“It is great to have some of our best players back in the mix and preparations have gone really well, so hopefully that translates onto the pitch on Saturday.
“We were pleased with the progress we made as a team on our tour and we want to build on that and deliver a rousing performance at home,” he said.
Stormers – 15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Sergeal Petersen, 13 Ruhan Nel, 12 Dan du Plessis, 11 Seabelo Senatla, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Stefan Ungerer, 8 Evan Roos, 7 Willie Engelbrecht, 6 Junior Pokomela, 5 Marvin Orie, 4 Salmaan Moerat (c), 3 Neethling Fouche, 2 Scarra Ntubeni, 1 Brok Harris.
Subs: 16 Andre-Hugo Venter, 17 Kwenzo Blose, 18 Lee-Marvin Mazibuko, 19 Ernst van Rhyn, 20 Nama Xaba, 21 Godlen Masimla, 22 Rikus Pretorius, 23 Tim Swiel.
Photo: ©Shaun Roy/BackpagePix
