OCCASIONALLY, perhaps no more than once in a generation, a prodigious talent bursts on to the scene from nowhere and takes a sport by storm.

The 17-year-old Boris Becker did it when winning Wimbledon at the first attempt in 1985. A decade later, Jonah Lomu did it too, when unleashed on some unsuspecting defences at the Rugby World Cup.

More common by far, however, even for some of the very best, is a steady ascent to the pinnacle. Andy Murray took that route to his Wimbledon triumph, while Paula Radcliffe, eventually a dominant figure in marathon running, also needed to make patient progress.

It can be a frustrating career path - one in which, as Murray knows all too well, some outsiders will readily write you off as an underachiever, a choker or an also-ran. But it is, nonetheless, a proven path to the top. And this week we will find out if Glasgow Warriors are ready to take the final step to the summit in their own sphere of activity.

True, winning the PRO12 final - as the Warriors aim to do when they play Munster in Belfast on Saturday - does not compare in global terms to winning one of tennis' majors or running the fastest marathon time in history. But the unfaltering upwards progress made by Gregor Townsend's team over the past few years does bear comparison with those and many other accomplishments.

Murray's immense promise had become obvious to all by the time he first competed at Wimbledon, but even so, he got no further than the third round that year. There was no disgrace at all in that - he lost to David Nalbandian, a former finalist, after taking the first two sets - but his supporters were still left with the feeling that, with a little more experience and perhaps a touch more self-belief, the Scot would have won that day.

Still, that first outing set Murray off on his long march to the final. Every year thereafter when he competed - a wrist injury forced him to sit out the Championships in 2007 - he would at least equal his achievement of the previous year.

If his progress seemed to stall from time to time, usually when he came up against Rafael Nadal, he was soon back travelling in the right direction. But, after that debut outing, he still needed to experience each round at least once before graduating beyond it, including the final itself, which he lost in 2012 before triumphing at last a year later.

Long before Murray broke his Grand Slam duck at the US Open in late 2012, there were some who were confident he was doomed never to win one of the four majors, and to go down in the history of his sport as an also-ran. The same was the case for Radcliffe, who at times was all-too-easily written off, even at a time when she was clearly making massive improvements.

The most memorable example of that came in the 10,000 metres final at the 1999 IAAF World Championships in Seville, when she did everything in her power to break her Ethiopian and Japanese rivals - and yet still only came away with the silver medal after failing to match the sprint finish of Gete Wami.

The frustration felt by the watching British journalists was laid bare at Radcliffe's press conference after the race, when one old hack blurted out: "Could you not just have run a bit faster?"

"I did just run faster than I've ever done in my life before, by around 30 seconds," she replied.

To his credit, the press man was humble enough to admit his lack of diplomacy. "I'll get my coat," he said, and got up as if to leave.

In a way, of course, he was right. Radcliffe could not run as fast as she needed to over the last lap to win that track title. The answer was for her to run longer: to turn to the marathon, where no-one could live with her punishing pace.

Individual athletes need to become mentally acclimatised to competing at the top before they can learn how to win at the top, and that is all the more so the case when it comes to teams, who have more variables in their psychological make-up simply by being composed of so many different individuals.

Which is where the Warriors come in. They may not have improved their league standing rung by rung, season by season as Murray did at Wimbledon, but they have made a very similar journey. From showing glimpses of promise to being on the fringes of honours, they went on last year to reach - and lose - the PRO12 final.

This year they are back, and determined to make use of that bitter experience by going one better in Belfast. In Munster, Glasgow are up against a team who completed that journey long ago, but that will not intimidate them. The Warriors are a team whose time has come, and they too can reach their long-sought-after destination this weekend.