Fourteen months ago, Munster turned up at Scotstoun and brought Glasgow's five-match PRO12 unbeaten run to a juddering halt with one of their trademark performances.

They were stroppy, niggly, fierce in contact and their time-wasting was outrageous. They frustrated Glasgow at every turn and the fury of the home fans was reflected when they walked off the pitch to a chorus of boos. Sweet music to Munster ears; in beating Glasgow 13-6 they also inherited Glasgow's place at the top of the table.

For much of this game, those same Glasgow supporters must have thought they were watching a rerun of that maddening contest in October 2013. Yet at the end the mind went back to May of this year, when the Warriors took revenge in the PRO-12 semi-final against the same opponents, and on the same Scotstoun ground, with a performance of grit and resilience that brought them a 16-15 victory and a place in the final in Dublin two weeks later.

There were lower stakes this time, of course, but something of the same character shone through in Glasgow's refusal to bow before Munster's legendary ability to squeeze the life out of the game. When they changed ends 18-9 down, the portents looked bleak for Gregor Townsend's side, but the well of self-belief had been replenished behind the dressing room's locked door during the interval.

Sophisticated man-management in action? Not exactly. "We got a bit of a bollocking at half-time," reported Rob Harley, the Warriors' workhorse flanker. It clearly worked, though, as Glasgow were a different side after the break. Bogged down in their own territory for much of the first half, they began to carry the ball forward with intensity and purpose. And in due time, the points arrived.

The second-half scoreline was 12-0 in Glasgow's favour. They had a couple of lucky breaks when Munster fly-half JJ Hanrahan missed kicks around the hour mark, but neither did Finn Russell have his greatest day with the boot, so that was hardly the significant factor. Of far greater interest was the fact that Glasgow were able to carry out running repairs on their game, something that still appeared beyond them 14 months ago. Something, for that matter, that they struggled with in their back-to-back Champions Cup losses to Toulouse earlier this month.

"The one team in world rugby you do not want to go behind against is Munster," said head coach Townsend. "We were down by nine points at half-time, so the character the players showed was great.

"There might have been a few people in the crowd who thought when Munster were 18 - 9 up that they would go on and win. So it was great for the players to work that out themselves, especially after to close defeats against Toulouse. That will give them a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.

"It wouldn't have been great [to lose] obviously. It is very tight this year. It is going to be a tremendous second half of the season. We know that the Irish teams will lose points over the next couple of weeks as they play each other, so we have an opportunity now over our next three games to make sure we play as well as we did in the second half for the whole 80 minutes."

The most pressing consideration for Townsend's team is to rise above the level of domestic squabbling in their festive clashes with Edinburgh over the next two weekends. Last season, Glasgow should have won those games at a canter, but in both they did so by narrow margins.

The Warriors moved to the top of the Guinness PRO12 table with this win, but they held that slot only for a couple of hours, when they were overtaken by Ospreys. Just five points now cover the leading five teams in the league, so three wins before the European/Six Nations break could set Glasgow up superbly for the spring run of games in which they gathered such momentum last season.

Having made 10 changes to the side that lost to Toulouse the previous weekend, Townsend would probably concede that not all of them worked out as planned. There was a distinct feeling that Glasgow became a far better side when they emptied their bench, with a particularly impressive cameo from Tommy Seymour, now one of the cleverest and craftiest wingers in the European game.

Tries by Hanrahan and Robin Copeland gave Muntser the bulk of their first-half points. Thereafter, the Irishmen were never really within striking distance of the Glasgow line, although there was plenty going on at the other end of the pitch.

Glasgow made their breakthrough there in the 52nd minute when Leone Nakarawa stretched over to score. Twenty minutes later, man of the match Jonny Gray crashed over for their second touchdown. There was relief in the Warriors camp at the finish, but there was no question that the victory was deserved.