'South Africa's respect levels for Scotland are sky high,' says Skinstad

Former South Africa captain Bob Skinstad says Murrayfield is "a difficult place to go" and the Springboks must shut out the noise made by "the 16th man".

The Boks visit the Scottish capital on Sunday and Skinstad believes there will be a showing of their "sky high levels of respect" for the Scots, who will be keen to scare the world champions more than they did in their World Cup meeting last year.

"You take on Scotland at home, as they proved to Fiji and to everyone who has come and played them the last couple of years, it's a difficult place to go," Skinstad said on the BBC's Scotland Rugby Podcast.

"There is a big, strong contingent of home support who can shout them home like a 16th man at any time.

"The Springboks will recognise that but they will also trust in the fact they are now starting to integrate a few of their players into the URC environment so they will have played against some of these players before."

There are a raft of URC champions filtered throughout Gregor Townsend's side following Glasgow Warriors success last season. A success which hasn't gone unnoticed or underappreciated in South Africa.

"The Warriors have knocked over the all-conquering Bulls of last season at their home patch, I think the respect levels are sky high," he added.

"It's brilliant. The Warriors have done a great job off the field, as have Scottish rugby at melting the budgets of the national union as well as the budgets of the teams that are needed at creating a pool of players in Scotland, with a little bit of creative mix from players outwith Scotland, I think it's fantastic.

"It's a melting pot of talent, quality, experience and youth coming through and I think it will serve Scottish rugby very well for a long, long time."