GREGOR Townsend was known for being quick off the mark as a player, but the speed of his elevation to Scotland head coach last week caused even him to catch his breath. As both the Glasgow Warriors head coach and his Scotland counterpart Vern Cotter still have a year on their current contracts to run, Scottish Rugby had a little time on their side before deciding how to plan the succession.

But instead of biding their time, the governing body first opted to announced that Townsend would succeed Cotter next June - and then a couple of days later named Chiefs coach Dave Rennie as the replacement for Townsend, again, from next summer.

“It all happened very quickly,” Townsend said, after his Glasgow Warriors team lost 22-17 to Harlequins in Saturday's pre-season friendly at the Twickenham Stoop. “I was involved in the [Warriors] strip launch, then, one hour later, I was given the Scotland job. I had barely had time to digest that, when I was speaking to Dave Rennie about the succession at Glasgow.

"However, Glasgow will remain my No 1 priority this season. We have a huge season coming up and I want to leave a positive legacy for Dave to work with.

“I have known Dave for four or five years, over which we have kept in touch. I feel there is a great similarity in our approach to coaching, we both look for the same skills sets in players, the clubs have a similar culture in how we want to play rugby and Dave is a good fit for Glasgow.

“We will work together in player recruitment and so on, I expect he will be over here in November once the Super Rugby season is over and we will be working to make the transition as smooth as possible.

“Once it was announced I was leaving, the players opened a sweepstake as to my successor, and one of them guessed. They seem happy at the choice the SRU have made.”

Stand-in skipper Rob Harley was certainly delighted at how things had evolved over the week. “We take Gregor's new appointment as a reflection on how well we as a squad have played," he said. "He has certainly built a Glasgow style, and fostered a great collective team spirit here.

“OK, today was our first outing, but, while we lost, we feel good about this season, and as one of the senior players, I was delighted at how well the new guys played today. Leonardo Sarto, we know, is an international winger, and he scored a great try, but, Lewis Wynne at number eight, who is an Academy player, put in a terrific shift, and the way he, and the other young players played against a very strong Harlequins, showed the depth of squad we now have. I am excited about Dave Rennie coming in and hopeful the squad will learn and continue to improve as it has under Gregor.”

These pre-season hit outs can be misleading, but, Glasgow can take a lot of positives from the game. They had parity with 'Quins at scrum time, looked if anything slicker behind the forwards and, while defence coach Matt Taylor was far from happy at a couple of missed first-up tackles which led to Harlequins' tries, these were rare slips on the day.

Harlequins were a lot closer to full-strength than Glasgow, but, the younger Scottish talent in the Warriors' ranks all caught the eye. Prop D'Arcy Rae stood no nonsense from Joe Marler, before giving way to Zander Fagerson, whose strength and technical ability showed in a couple of seven-man scrums. Scott Cummings again impressed at lock, while the two young number eights, Lewis Wynne and CallumHunter-Hill demonstrated the log jam of good breakaways at Scotstoun with their contributions.

It was good to see Alex Dunbar come on and look close to his best, while Richie Vernon, a half-time replacement for Nick Grigg, who is none the worse for his head knock, was also impressive. Simone Favaro and Leonardo Sarto scored good tries, with a video referee Vernon might have had one, while Pat McArthur's try showed Scottish sides can do driving mauls.

If anything, Townsend's departure at the end of the season has reinforced Glasgow's determination to send him off on a high. This could well be a special season for a special team.