John Smit has been dropped from the Sharks' starting line-up to face the Highlanders in their Super 14 encounter on Saturday.
The axing of the South Africa captain is one of four changes made by coach John Plumtree - the other significant one coming at fullback, where Patrick Lambie comes in to make his debut.
The Durban franchise, widely expected to reach at least the play-offs prior to the start of the competition, has failed to win any of its opening five matches.
Victory in Dunedin, though, will keep alive its hopes of making the final four and Plumtree has reacted by trying to change some of his combinations.
Winger Odwa Ndungane is injured, so one enforced change was required - Lambie brought in at number 15, with veteran Stefan Terblanche shifted out wide.
Skipper Smit drops to the bench with Jannie du Plessis taking his place in the front row, while there are changes at flanker, with Jean Deysel and Keegan Daniel brought in for Willem Alberts and Jacques Botes.
Another Springbok, Johann Muller, will lead the team in place of Smit.
"When you are one or two points up with 10 minutes to go, you don't want to be conceding penalties," said Plumtree, reflecting on the 24-22 loss to the Brumbies in the last game.
"The game is all about pressure and composure."
"At the end of the day, we need to show enough composure to win the game. We're pretty happy with our defence, we were in the Brumbies game pretty much all the way."
"We've lost four games by less than four or five points so it's been very frustrating that we can't win these close games."
Sharks team: P Lambie; S Terblanche, A Jacobs, R Swanepoel, JP Pietersen; A Goode, R Pienaar; T Mtawarira, B du Plessis, J du Plessis, S Sykes, J Muller, K Daniel, J Deysel, R Kankowski.
Replacements: C Burden, J Smit, A Hargreaves, W Alberts, J Botes, R Kockott, W Murray.