Some Scotland stars have fresh memory of 10 Springboks - but revenge mission not on their minds

Scotland don’t need a reminder of the challenge world champions South Africa will pose on Sunday at Murrayfield, although second row Scott Cummings and his Glasgow Warriors teammates got one just last month on club duty.

The United Rugby Champions were in South Africa in October to face the Sharks and the Stormers, with the former unloading a number of their Springbok contingent upon them.

Current South African squad members Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi, Vincent Koch, Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, Jaden Hendrikse, Makazole Mapimpi, Andre Esterhuizen, Lukhanyo Am and Aphelele Fassi all started for the Sharks as they picked up a 28-24 win over Warriors in Pretoria. All ten are likely to be involved in Edinburgh.

Scott Cummings tries to break past Manie Libbok during last year's World Cup defeat by South Africa. | Getty Images

Cummings’ came up directly against one of the world’s best locks in Etzebeth and put in a decent shift against the Sharks - but the 27-year-old expects the test to be even sterner against the national team.

“Obviously we've played some of them,” said Cummings, “but they're playing in different teams, different systems, and obviously a lot of the Sharks boys we've played recently. You can pick up some things, things they try and do, but also it's a different set-up with South Africa. It's a step up, so we'll be expecting a tough challenge.”

Memories of their most recent encounter with South Africa are still fresh in the memory banks. Scotland face them on September 10 last year in their World Cup opener in Marseille. Despite being within striking distance at the interval, just 6-3 down, the Boks powered away to win 18-3. They didn’t look back thereafter, going on to win the whole tournament despite a pool-phase loss to Ireland.

“Playing international rugby, you're going to come up against great players and South Africa are obviously some of the best just now,” continued Cummings. “They’ve been back-to-back world champions and they are that big ticket-match and they're going to bring their gameplan and it's up to us to stop that and impose our gameplan.

“We’re going to be playing against some of the best but we're excited for it.”

Cummings charges down a Fijian kick during the 57-17 win last weekend. | SNS Group / SRU

Cummings refutes any notion of a revenge mission. “I wouldn't say we use that as motivation,” he said of the defeat in France. “I think playing the world champs is all the motivation you need.

“We played well throughout that, there's a lot of parts of that game we did play well. I think it was 6-3 at half-time. We defended well in that first half, a lot of great set-pieces and stuff and, yeah, obviously we'll look at that game, look to things we can improve from that game.”

Scotland go into the match on a high after beating Fiji 57-17 on Saturday. “Obviously we'll be taking a lot from this weekend but we can improve,” added Cummings. “We’ve changed a couple of things so there'll be stuff that we'll be looking to try against them. It’s about us imposing our game on them as much as we're stopping them.

“A lot changes in a year. There's different players in, different people in different set-ups. They've changed quite a lot of their players and we'll be going in there with some confidence next weekend. It's at Murrayfield, which is exciting for us and we can't wait for the weekend.”