Grant Gilchrist: South Africa are World Cup champions for a reason

Bullish Grant Gilchrist is adamant Scotland remain unfazed by South Africa's blistering form in the lead-up to their World Cup showdown in Marseille a week on Sunday.

While the Scots have enjoyed an encouraging summer campaign, the Boks have been busy inflicting record defeats on both Wales (52-16) and New Zealand (35-7) over the past two weekends to climb to second in the world rankings with Andy Farrell's Ireland side also set for Pool B clashes with both.

The Scotland squad watched South Africa’s demolition of the All Blacks together in their hotel on Friday, but lock Gilchrist insists it has not caused any heightened trepidation within the dressing room.

"It doesn’t change our mindset," he said. "We’ve known all along that South Africa can peak at a World Cup, they’re world champions for a reason.

"We always knew the size of the challenge that was going to face us. Other people might say this and that, but we were expecting to play the best version of the Springboks, and we’re going to relish that opportunity.

"It’s even more exciting when you see the way they played against the All Blacks. They’re one of the top sides in the world and we have to go out and impose our game on them.

"If you don’t feel excited about playing South Africa at a World Cup when they’re in the form they’re in, then you’re in the wrong changing room. We’re going to embrace that.

"We know we’ll be massive underdogs but we’ll be going into that game having prepared really well and we certainly believe if we can get our best rugby on the pitch for 80 minutes we can cause them a lot of problems."

The Scots made it three wins from four summer Tests on Saturday when they recovered from a 6-0 half-time deficit to defeat Georgia 33-6 at Murrayfield, with