Glasgow Warriors’ chance of progress in the European Champions Cup may be minimal but in some respects they are fighting for the credibility of the competition they come from over the remainder of the competition and the next two weekends in particular.

The compliment paid to them at Scotstoun by Danny Wilson, the Cardiff Blues head coach, after he had become the latest to see his team ripped apart by Glasgow’s pace last weekend, was a considerable one as he suggested that they are ‘the best team in the competition.’

That seems impossible to argue against on the back of a run of 10 successive wins, a record start to a season by any team in this competition. They have meanwhile generated eight four-try bonus points along the way, the last seven of them in succession.

Yet that sequence only makes the only setbacks they have suffered this season, maintaining a very different type of 100 per cent record, all the more conspicuous and, in the eyes of English and French observers in particular, potentially all the more telling.

Two defeats in their opening two Champions Cup matches, failing to acquire so much as a losing bonus point in either of them, has left them trailing Leinster, who have a perfect 10, Exeter Chiefs, who are a point off the pace set by the Irish province and even Montpellier, who have, like Glasgow, lost both matches so far, but have taken three bonus points from their matches.

It is a situation that has the potential to reinforce the image of the Pro14 is a lightweight competition, unworthy of comparison with the English Premiership and French Top 14. That is borne out by the overall figures which show that the French clubs have won seven of their 12 matches and drawn one to date and the English clubs seven from 12, while the Pro14 teams have won just four and drawn one of their 12 matches to date.

Naturally it will be pointed out that there is counter evidence in the form of the Irish provinces that have so far managed four wins and a draw from their six matches and, indeed, as noted above, Glasgow’s pool is led by one of them, Leinster also sharing with reigning European champions Saracens and Top 14 leaders La Rochelle, the distinction of being one of just three teams to have won both matches with bonus points so far.

However, that can also be interpreted as reinforcing the long-standing impression that while they have been the standard bearers for Celtic rugby in the professional age, when it comes to competing on the international stage, the Irish provinces do so not because they are honed in the Pro14 environment, but because they treat the competition as little more than a development tool for most of the season.

Nothing could have better exemplified that than the two visits of Leinster to Scotstoun in the space of a couple of weeks this season.

Ahead of the first of those matches there was lots of encouragement drawn from the fact that Leinster had been thrashed on their previous visit to Glasgow, but this was Europe and with Jonny Sexton at the helm a battle-hardened side gave their hosts a sound beating. Two weeks later they returned with a starting line-up that included only two of the same men and Glasgow came through comfortable 31-21 winners.

I well remember being in Cardiff in 2008 when Munster won the second of their European titles. A few weeks earlier Leinster had won what was still then the Celtic League, the forerunner of what is now the Pro14 and as we left the stadium a Munster supporter was hanging off the railings at the Westgate Street end of the Millennium Stadium and chanting about where Leinster could shove the Celtic Cup. There was some irony in that they were to exchange trophies the following year, but there has been a lingering sense that winning the Pro14 does not carry the same clout as winning titles in England or even more so France where there has sometimes been a suspicion that teams have fielded weakened sides in Europe in prioritising the domestic league.

It is, then, all very well being seen by Pro14 teams as the best in that competition, but if that is to carry a bit more weight Glasgow must make some sort of impression in Europe this season.