GLASGOW Warriors are on their best run of the season so far, having won their last five games, and in doing so they have displayed a versatility that was beyond them not too long ago. While their biggest scores still see them turn to strike runners such as Stuart Hogg and Tommy Seymour, they are now just as capable of winning tighter games by meeting fire with fire up front.

The enhanced power of the Warriors pack was most in evidence in the home Champions Cup match against Racing 92, when the Parisians, a week after being humiliated at home, fielded one of the heaviest group of forwards ever selected. The aim was clear: to steamroller Glasgow off the pitch in the bluntest, most uncompromising way possible.

It did not work. Racing’s rolling maul was rebuffed, and the Warriors played at a tempo that left their opponents gasping for breath on Scotstoun’s artificial surface.

The three subsequent wins in the PRO 12, against Edinburgh, Treviso and Cardiff, have enhanced the feeling the team are now playing close to a level that can take them, at last, to the European quarter-finals.

And yet, despite all the virtues shown in that five-game winning streak, assistant coach Dan McFarland has rightly warned that the Warriors will need to improve again if they are to make it six wins on the bounce when they meet Munster tomorrow evening. The Irish province have already beaten the Warriors twice this season - in the Champions Cup in their first game after the sudden death of their coach Anthony Foley, and then in the league just a few weeks ago.

With a three-point lead over Glasgow in Champions Cup pool one, Munster will take a huge step towards the quarter-finals if they win at Scotstoun, and McFarland thinks the home forwards in particular will have to be on top of their game if they are going to stop that. “We have to front up,” he said. “We have to bring our A game. And we will have to be better than last week.

“The lads did well last week, but we’re now going up to another level playing Champions Cup rugby. Munster bring a very specific gameplan which they execute extremely well, right up there with the best, whether it is in their forward play, their defence, their kicking game.

“But also, they can be lethal in their attacks. They’re certainly focused around an attritional style of play and if we don't deal with that then it’s going to be a very difficult afternoon.”

Both teams were without key players in the league game at Scotstoun, and the European match in Limerick was played in unique circumstances. Munster were not only inspired then, they have won almost every game since - but McFarland is convinced his own squad are also very strong characters.

“There were exceptional circumstances,” he said of that game in Ireland back in October. “It was a very tragic week. Munster had to deal with a lot of emotional issues, psychological issues, and it was the same for us from a different perspective.

“They certainly demonstrated a massive resilience and showed the qualities the club is well known for by pulling together. The weeks since then have obviously been a huge credit to them as well.

“I admire them for that. I spent a long time in Ireland and I've always admired them. I know a lot of the people around the organisation very well. That sense of family and togetherness, that fighting spirit when times get hard, is something that has characterised them for a long time.

“But that characterises the Warriors as well. This is a place that relishes difficult times it’s not an organisation that shies away from that. They want that, they want something that tests them, whether it’s the weather or anything else.”

With the three best runners-up from the five pools going through to the last eight as well as the pool winners, whichever team loses tomorrow night still has a chance. Leicester, who play Racing 92 in Paris tomorrow evening, are also still in the running, and whatever happens this weekend, the match between the English team and the Warriors in Leicester a week tomorrow could come down to a straight knockout.

Winning both their remaining games will not guarantee that Glasgow finish top of the pool, but it will almost certainly be enough for second place. And if they do go through to the last eight, McFarland, who was formerly assistant coach with Connacht, believes the impact on Scottish rugby as a whole will be similar to the best that the Irish game received when its provinces started making waves in continental competition.

“If you look at the history of those Irish teams, it was no coincidence that the rise of the Irish international team was linked to Munster and Leinster's success in Europe. The two go hand-in-hand; one helps the other. It's hard to say which started which, but the success of Munster in Europe certainly had a huge impact on the confidence of their national team.

“Leinster followed that, and when you have big quarter-finals and semi-finals it’s exposing players to a level of rugby that those involved in will tell you comes very close to Test-match level. That kind of experience is gold and that's what we're looking for.

“To get that experience and then come out as a winner is even better. For the Scottish teams to be playing in quarter-finals and semi-finals would be huge - and it is a huge goal.”