It often happens in Scottish rugby. Just as the green shoots of optimism start to sprout something sharp sweeps in and slices them off at the root.
Such was it at Scotstoun on Saturday. The 6500 crowd but for a few vocal Scarlets fans team, management and even the press were wreathed in smiles after Taqele Naiyaravoro scored a hat-trick and Glasgow routed their Welsh visitors 43-6 to re-start their European Champions Cup campaign.
Just a couple of hours later, however, hard reality set in. The Northampton Saints side that simply outclassed and over-powered the Warriors in November were thoroughly dissected and dismantled themselves by a Dan Carter-led Racing 92 in Paris.
Glasgow still have their two Pool Three games left against Racing, but it’s going to be an almighty tough ask to even get second in this pool. The cosmopolitan Parisians didn’t seem as if they even needed the great All Black all that much as they smacked the Saints all over Colombes.
And if Glasgow are to qualify second, not only do they have to repeat the bonus point dose on the Scarlets in Llanelli next week (after three European losses, the west Welsh region seem to have, in the old clich, decided they’ll concentrate on the league) but they’ll probably have to win at Franklin’s Gardens in January as well.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The Warriors have been fitful for much of this season, especially in their usually impregnable home ground, and Saturday was a welcome return to some of their sparkling and inventive best.
Much of the invention, such as it was on Saturday, was simply getting the ball to Naiyaravoro and letting him loose. On his European debut, the 6 foot five inch, 20 stone Fiji-born Australian leviathan was a devastating force.
Even the sodden ground that hardly suited his hard-running style couldn’t stop him. Scarlets defenders were swatted aside with contempt, but there was also some finesse and anticipation with the power.
Finn Russell’s outstanding cross kick brought him one try, an interception his third, showing his anticipation. His fourth “try” in the first half, chalked off for no more than a toenail on the touchline, showed he has some delicate skills to go with the brutal ones.
Like all of the islanders who have come to Scotstoun, “Big T” is devout, modest and just loves to be in the action. He didn’t come cheap, but Glasgow fans who are still pining for DTH van der Merwe and Niko Matawalu might reckon this force of nature on the wing represents a decent bit of business Naiyaravoro probably costs what they were paying for the other two until they left this summer.
Big T wasn’t immune from the odd handling error that plagued Glasgow on Saturday, and in the long 45-minute spell from Duncan Weir’s opening try to James Malcolm’s second there were far too many for Gregor Townsend, even if the head coach pronounced himself happy with even the disjointed first-half display.
The Scarlets were no-one’s idea of full-strength, with just as many injuries as the Warriors but to far more influential men. But it was still heartening after some struggles of late to see the scrum and lineout so solid.
Malcolm was excellent in his first start and the whole front row went better than it has done for more than a month. It’ll help Warriors fans feel a bit better about the upcoming 1872 Cup games against the Edinburgh formidable all-Scotland front row, but only a bit.
Better still was Alex Dunbar’s reassuring performance in midfield, with him and Peter Horne looking like a choice combination, although with everyone fit whatever trio Townsend picks from 10 to 13 is pretty good.
But for all the inventive rugby Glasgow have developed a reputation for, just getting the ball wide to Big T might be the best tactic of all. Now that he’s got the pace of the softer European grounds, there could be no stopping him.