IT'S amazing what a prize can do for you. For most of the time since professional rugby began, Glasgow were a team struggling for respect – until about five years ago not even the most respected team in Scotland, more the side that the Scottish Rugby Union needed just to keep up the professional playing numbers.

Now that they are Guinness PRO12 champions, all that has changed. In came an invitation to train with Clermont Auvergne, giants of the French Top 14, before playing – and losing, but by no means embarrassingly – their hosts, and today the second party from the club are flying to Nova Scotia to complete their preparations for the New Scotland clash against Canada.

"It was an invaluable chance to play and train with and against Clermont, and Canada should be similar," said Gregor Townsend, the Glasgow Warriors head coach a the official tournament launch at the sponsors' headquarters in London yesterday. "It is going to test us. It certainly helps if you have bring the reigning champions among your achievements. That will help in these invitations. All we have to do is make sure we live up to that billing.

"Now we have a game against an international side in a different environment, against an international side way from home, which will challenge our players. We want be in the best position possible going into the Scarlets game and think it will be really good preparation for us."

Then there is the little matter of defending their title in a campaign that will start with up to half their squad at the World Cup, mostly with Scotland but some with Fiji and the USA. Many squads – including the Scottish one – won't be announced until next week, but no club is likely to have more players at the World Cup than Glasgow, which makes the opening set of games particularly tricky.

"It is the same challenge for every coach," said Townsend. "We know there are two games, two weeks off, one game, one week off and then 16 on the bounce. You have got to make sure you have a squad that knows the game plan, is clear about their roles and is in the right physical condition, and is ready to go right at the beginning.

"Those games at the start are just as important as the ones at the end of the campaign. We believe so far we are in really good shape and rugby wise, this Canada game is a chance to really embed what we have been doing.

"We have a big squad. Last year we used 52 players, this year we are likely to use more and I am delighted with the quality of players we have at training – just look at scrum half where we have a British & Irish Lion [Mike Blair], a Scotland international [Grayson Hart], and a young, exciting player coming through [Ali Price]. That is just one position where we also have Henry [Pyrgos] who has been in fantastic form away with Scotland."

What it will mean for Townsend is that while he has a core group of players he can rely on in big games, the loss of so many to national duties will force him to give youngsters their chances. As he pointed out by the end of the Clermont game they had a 19 year old at tighthead prop, Zander Fagerson; and two 18-year olds at lock in Scott Cummings and Andrew Davidson.

"They stood up well, this is their opportunity to go out and grab," said Townsend. "They were getting stuck into one of the best sides in Europe who were getting ready to go into action in the Top 14 the following week.

"The leaders and experienced players in the group have also been outstanding. We have a leadership group with Peter Murchie, Pat McArthur, Chris Fusaro, James Edie. Supporters know these players well – they have been with the club for five, six years or more – and it is good that the team will be led through this period by people who know the club inside out.

After Glasgow Warriors claimed the title in that dramatic match in Belfast, Townsend said his task was to make sure it was the start of something big for the team, not a peak from which they would fall and 10 weeks later he has not changed his mind. "The standards that we have set over the last few years, we are going to have to live up to them and improve them because this year will be tougher," he said.

"We have got to work harder and learn quicker than the opposition while reproduce the consistency we have achieved in the last few years because that is what drives us into semi finals and finals. I would like to think that teams play us pretty full on whether we were runners up or champions."

Even so, they are champions and there to be shot at. Weakened by World Cup demands, Townsend knows defending the title is even harder than winning it.