England back row Brad Shields is one of four Wasps players ruled out of Saturday's Premiership final amid a coronavirus outbreak at the club.

Ex-All Blacks centre Malakai Fekitoa is also out with a groin injury.

Exeter make four changes to the side which won the Champions Cup final last week with Scotland's Jonny Gray rested.

Compatriot Sam Skinner takes Gray's place in the second row, while Exeter opt for Jannes Kirsten at flanker in place of fellow South African Jacques Vermeulen, Ollie Devoto starts for Ian Whitten at centre and Olly Woodburn replaces Tom O'Flaherty on the wing.

In total Wasps make four changes from the side which started their semi-final win over Bristol two weeks ago.

Tom Willis steps up from the bench to replace Shields at number eight and joins a pack that includes his brother and newly-crowned Premiership Player of the Year Jack Willis.

Tom West replaces McIntyre at loose-head while Jeff Toomaga-Allen starts for Brookes at tight-head and Juan de Jongh comes in at centre for the injured Fekitoa.

Outbreak overshadows final

Saturday's game will be played at an empty Twickenham with crowds still not allowed in because of coronavirus rules. Referee Wayne Barnes has also had to stand down after testing positive for Covid-19 and has been replaced by Craig Maxwell-Keys.

Wasps almost lost their place in the final after an outbreak of Covid-19 following their win over Bristol with the Bears lined up to take their place if Wasps had any more positive cases from a round of testing conducted on Tuesday.

It was only confirmed on Wednesday that Wasps could play.

Head coach Lee Blackett has had to build a side without 11 members of his squad, although he has been fortunate that a large number of his first-choice side have come through the episode with a clean bill of health.

"You work so hard to get there, to have it taken away when you feel everything's out of your control was pretty hard to take, but it's going to make it even more special when it comes to the weekend," Blackett said.

"We're going to enjoy it, we're delighted to be there, but we're not just happy to be there, we want to go and win it, that's our mentality."

Blackett has led Wasps to the final just eight months after succeeding Dai Young at the helm when the Coventry-based side were 10th in the Premiership.

Under the 37-year-old, Wasps have won 12 games and lost just twice - one of which was his first in charge - as they stormed up to second place in the final league table.

"We've been pretty adaptable throughout," added Blackett when asked about how his team will approach the game with the European champions despite having a depleted squad.

"You look at the challenges we've had this year, you look at Bath away and losing two hookers within half an hour and going on to win that game, backing it up five days later when we make 14 changes and we go to Saracens - who are full strength - and having made 14 changes win.

"Yes we are confident, one thing that this period has shown us is how strong our squad is and what a great chance and opportunity at the weekend to prove that."

Exeter aim for historic double

Just over a decade after winning promotion to English rugby union's top flight for the first time, Exeter have gone on to become European champions after beating Racing 92 in a thrilling Champions Cup final last week.

They will aim to become just the fourth English side to complete a domestic and European double by repeating their 2017 Premiership final win over Wasps.

The Chiefs dominated the Premiership for much of the season, split in half by the Covid-19 pandemic, so much so that they were able to rest their frontline players for the final three weeks of the campaign. During that time a young Exeter side were thrashed 46-5 by Wasps at the Ricoh Arena.

But having reverted to their first-choice side, Exeter beat Bath in the Premiership semi-final two weeks ago before winning their first European title.

"I would like to think that winning last week will allow us to play potentially better than you can sometimes do in a final because we've gone from final to final and you'd like to take all the positives out of that," said Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter.

"We've knocked one off and now, I'm not going to say relax because it would be the wrong word, but now we're ready to go and we've had a very recent experience of what it took to win a big game and the highs and lows that went through that game and the good and bad things we did.

"But at the same time if we don't turn up, this is Wasps' biggest game of the season, this is the thing that they've been building for for weeks and weeks and weeks.

"If we're expecting that this is going to be a normal game of rugby we are going to get shocked. This is a final, there's going to be an intensity there that's going to be at a level that we have to be ready for."

Exeter: Hogg; Nowell, Slade, Devoto, Woodburn; Simmonds (capt), Maunder; Hepburn, Cowan-Dickie, Williams, Skinner, Hill, Ewers, Kirsten, Simmonds.

Replacements: Yeandle, Moon, Francis, Gray, Vermeulen, Hidalgo-Clyne, Steenson, Ian Whitten.

Wasps: Minozzi; Kibirige, de Jongh, Gopperth, Bassett; Umaga, Robson; West, Taylor, Toomaga-Allen, Launchbury (capt), Rowlands, J Willis, Young, T Willis.

Replacements: Oghre, Harris, Alo, Gaskell, Morris, Vellacott, Sopoaga, Le Bourgeois.