Hines confident of knocking down Boks

Scotland lock Nathan Hines insists that the Scots can defy the odds and beat South Africa in the last of their Abbey Autumn Tests at Murrayfield on Saturday.

The Springboks are Tri-Nations champions and, although they have lost their last two games to Ireland and England, coach Matt Williams flagged up the inherent imbalance between the two country's player pools as evidence of how tough the home side will find it in Edinburgh.

Playing down the notion that the visitors' coach Jake White has weakened his side by making seven changes to the side which lost 32-16 to England at Twickenham last week, Williams declared: "There are 300,000 rugby players in South Africa and we only have 10,000, so they have a lot of depth."

However, Hines more up-beat, quipping : "They can't play 300,000 players on the pitch at one time.

"We've got the ability to beat them and I think we can compete with them year in, year out.

"There are other smaller nations who compete with the larger ones and I think it's down to the development of the players and stuff like that. You've got to look at the quality and not the quantity."

Despite Hines contradicting his more cautious coach, the 27-year-old praised Williams' contribution to the national side since he took over from Ian McGeechan 18 months ago.

"The development of the national squad has come on immensely since Matt has taken over," said Hines.

"We're more organised and have got more of a plan in place to get the outcomes and it's now up to the players to carry that out.

"Everyone has moved forward together although some had to move forward quicker than others.

"But we're all pretty much at the same level now and we all want the same thing. We will leave no stone unturned to get a win.

"Potentially we have got the makings of a great team, we just haven't put it all together yet.

"We know how we want to play South Africa and as long as we stick to that and don't let ourselves down by switching off then we should be okay.

"And it would be awesome to get a result to show that we have come on. The performance last week against Australia was indicative of how far we have progressed since a year ago, we just need to put a flag in the ground so to speak to say we have improved and this is what we can do now."