CHRIS Cusiter knows what it's like to depart on a high and he wants to ensure that Sean Lineen vacates his post as Glasgow Warriors head coach with a similar experience.

"I had a great time winning the championship with Boroughmuir in 2003," said the 29-year-old scrum-half. "It remains one of my favourite memories of playing rugby,"

Ahead of that season the toughest task for Lineen, the then Boroughmuir coach, had looked to be working out a way of replacing Mike Blair, who had just stepped up to the professional game with Edinburgh. Yet he was remarkably relaxed about it.

"I think I may have found an even better scrum-half," said the coach at the time.

To this day, that debate rages at the highest level, both Blair and Cusiter having gone on to become British & Irish Lions. Beyond dispute, however, is the skill involved in having identified such talent: drawing them to the club, then got the best out of them.

Both Cusiter and Lineen went professional full-time on the back of that success, the former to understudy another grand slam-winning great Gary Armstrong at the Border Reivers, the latter as backs coach at Glasgow Warriors.

That they now find themselves working together again as Glasgow contest the RaboDirect Pro12 play-offs in what will be Lineen's last campaign as a club head coach offers the extra incentive of perfectly book-ending his coaching career there. And Cusiter would love to reward his boss in that way.

"I really enjoyed working with Sean at Boroughmuir and I've enjoyed the last three years at Glasgow as well," said the scrum-half. "There have been ups and downs, of course, but getting to two semi-finals in this competition in three years is a great achievement. In years gone by, Glasgow would never had had the consistency required to do that and that's down to Sean.

"Al Kellock spoke about it to the crowd after our last game at Firhill on Saturday. Everything Sean does is for the good of Glasgow rugby. Inevitably he has had to disappoint people at times and that's what makes it a difficult job, while I could see how frustrated he was last season when, for a variety of reasons, we struggled, but he has created an environment which has allowed us to produce some great results.

"When you look at the squads we play against for us to make the top four is a real turn up for the books. I don't think anyone would have predicted it, but being underdogs suits us and we'll certainly be that this weekend."

Which is just as it was two years ago when Cusiter missed out on the semi-final after suffering what was at first thought to be a relatively minor knee injury in the last league match against the Scarlets only for it to turn into a career-threatening problem which cost him a full season.

That may have been in Lineen's mind when he decided Cusiter's involvement would be minimised last weekend as the looked towards the prospect of facing Europe's best side, Leinster, in the semis.

Coming off the bench rather than starting against Connacht was to prove a difficult experience for Cusiter but not because of the customary resentment of a senior man for his understudy since he has a very high opinion of Henry Pyrgos, who is now beginning to push him very hard.

"I'm really pleased for Henry and the way he's been playing. It's great to see and I'm at the stage now that although I want to play every week, it is great to see him develop. He has been involved in about 20 games this season and I've known that even if I'm away, things would go well.

"What was frustrating on Saturday, though, was suffering a dead leg within a minute of getting on to the pitch," Cusiter explained with a wry laugh.

"It should be okay and it was just down to bad tackle technique so I've got no-one else to blame, but it's the fourth dead leg I've suffered this season. I guess the positive I can take from it is that it suggests I've not got any body fat protecting me."

All delivered with customary good humour, yet with enough edge to reflect the culture at Glasgow, because there is a raw muscularity about their playing style, to the extent that Cusiter's description of Saturday's win could have been applied to any one of a dozen of their victories this season.

"It wasn't the best game to watch but there's no substitute for winning," said a man who, in his professional career in Scotland, has had more than his fair share of the other thing.

"We know our strengths and our weaknesses so we make no apologies for that."

Those strengths involve the sort of competition for places that exists between Cusiter and Pyrgos now being in place in every position which is what gives belief that they can be more competitive than when they reached the semi-finals two years ago.

"I think the difference between this year and 2010 is that the balance of the squad is much better. Then a lot of our game was centred on how Dan Parks was playing. Now, when you you look at the way the tries we've scored are spread around the team, everyone is contributing equally and because we've got a squad it also means that everyone's not exhausted simply by the effort of getting to the play-offs."

While Cusiter is, then, part of a generation of Scottish players who have precious little in the way of silverware to show for prodigious effort, he has reason to believe that could change, perhaps even in the next few weeks.

"The depth of squad is why the Irish have achieved what they have and we're definitely getting a quality of player here that has allowed us to get on a roll which in turn brings that team spirit and morale," he said.

"I particularly want to win something with Glasgow and it would be a great way to finish my first three-year contract with the club. I saw the potential here which is one of the reasons I wanted to come back and this is a good time for us to kick on."