Hunter Wildfires coach Joey de Dassel plans to "unleash" rising talent Aiishya Tipa-Leota when they host Jack Scott Cup heavyweights Sydney Uni at No.2 Sportsground on Saturday.
Tipa-Leota gets her starting debut at tighthead prop, in place of Maryann Utai, and Callie Winsor also gets her first start.
Utai will start from the bench and Winsor takes the place of Emily Sheather on the wing with the latter unavailable on Saturday due to representative commitments with the NSW Country under-18 squad.
"We'll have a couple of changes," de Dassel said.
"Callie is returning from a long injury. She came back last week off the bench and gets a crack in the starting side this weekend on the wing.
"Maz [Utai] is carrying a bit of an injury and Aiishya has been training the house down, so we're ready to unleash her. She's only young. She's still in year 12 and she's got a bright future so we're ready to give her a crack."
Sydney Uni are one of two teams that beat the Wildfires in the first half of Sydney women's premier rugby union competition. They were 17-5 winners when the two sides met in the second round.
Hunter's other loss came last weekend, when they were downed 24-19 by Gordon.
"To be honest, we haven't spoken about Sydney Uni," de Dassel said. "We had a fair bit to work on from last weekend within ourselves so we've focused on that.
"But Sydney Uni are the benchmark. They've been the team that hasn't been beaten for so long. Everybody wants to knock them off and we're no different. We'll certainly be going out there to win."
The Wildfires were locked 5-5 with Sydney Uni in their last meeting before the competition big guns ran away with the match in the second half.
"We have a big focus on the breakdown," de Dassel said. "Against Sydney Uni, they pinched a lot of ball off us last game so we want to give ourselves a fighting chance. To do that we've got to hold onto possession when we get it.
"Last week our patience and our ability to stay calm let us down a little bit so we certainly spoke about that this week as well."
The match kicks off at 4.50pm, following colts (11.50am), second grade (1.25pm) and first grade (3.05pm). It will be the first of a run of home games for the women.
