Rising flanker Ardie Savea is one casualty as Hurricanes coach Mark Hammett overhauled half his forward pack for Friday’s Super Rugby home match against the Western Force.

Hammett has made five changes from the side who lost 28-6 to the Blues in Auckland, a result which ended a four-match winning stretch, including handing openside flanker Jack Lam his first start of the season.

Lam came off the bench last week in a first appearance since undergoing a knee reconstruction last year.

Karl Lowe, who wore the No.7 jersey through the first five games of the season, is back on the bench.

It leaves no room for highly rated teenager Savea, who shone in his debut against the Waratahs but was less effective against the Blues a week later.

“When we selected Ardie for his first game we wanted to give him a couple of weeks of game time and then a rest,” Hammett said.

“He is still only 19 and we want to make sure he enjoys a full season of Super Rugby rather than wearing him down early in the year. We are lucky we have a lot of experience in our loose forwards to be able to support his development as a Super Rugby player.”

The three other changes to the forward pack are lock Jeremy Thrush (ankle) and hooker Dane Coles (wrist) returning from injury in place of Jason Eaton and Motu Matu’u, while Jeffery Toomaga-Allen replaces Reggie Goodes at tighthead prop.

The sole backline change is TJ Perenara shifting to the reserve bench, allowing a rare start for Chris Smylie.

Both Perenara and Eaton had started all seven games this year, leaving Hammett keen to give them “a bit of a break”.

“We saw last year we can’t rely on each of our players to be available for every match, so we always wanted to be able to give Chris a few more minutes in the starting position at some point,” Hammett said.

Regular No.10 Beauden Barrett has been retained at fullback, with Samoan international Tusi Pisi to wear No.10 for a second week.

All Blacks loose forward Victor Vito remains sidelined with a calf injury while prop Ben May (elbow) also wasn’t considered.

Hurricanes: Beauden Barrett, Alapati Leiua, Conrad Smith (capt), Tim Bateman, Julian Savea, Tusi Pisi, Chris Smylie, Faifili Levave, Jack Lam, Brad Shields, Mark Reddish, Jeremy Thrush, Jeffery Toomaga-Allen, Dane Coles, Ben Franks. Reserves: Motu Matu’u, Reggie Goodes, James Broadhurst, Karl Lowe, TJ Perenara, Reynold Lee-Lo, Andre Taylor