Ben Gollings is away on England Sevens duty, so Matt Moore takes his place on the wing.

On the bench, Moore's place is taken by Chris Bell, who has recovered from a hamstring injury, and Bruce Starr replaces Pablo Cardinali.

"We are expecting a very tough game in the North East," said NEC Harlequins Chief Executive Mark Evans.

"We have watched all of Newcastle's recent games and they were extremely unlucky to lose to Saracens a couple of weeks ago at Vicarage Road. Newcastle played very well that evening and with a world class performer like Jonny Wilkinson back in the team, they will want to put on a good performance in front of their home crowd."

"The Zurich Premiership remains very tight and a win for either team on Saturday will make a significant difference as to how they look at the rest of the season. We are looking to break into the top half of the table and to do that we have got to start picking up points away from home."

The full team is as follows:

15. Nathan Williams
14. Matt Moore
13. Will Greenwood
12. Viliame Satala
11. Dan Luger
10. Paul Burke
9. Scott Bemand
1. Jason Leonard
2. Tani Fuga
3. Jon Dawson
4. Bill Davison
5. Alex Codling
6. Ace Tiatia
7. Andre Vos (Capt.)
8. Tony Diprose

Replacements:
16. Bruce Starr
17. Jim Evans
18. Simon Miall
19. Luke Sherriff
20. Matthew Powell
21. Rob Jewell
22. Chris Bell