Talk about putting points on a plate.

Referee Giuseppe Vivarini might as well have been dressed as a liveried waiter when he shot his arm up and awarded Glasgow a penalty against Scarlets last weekend. Two minutes in, straight in front of the posts, a guaranteed three. What could be simpler?

But Niko Matawalu doesn't do simple. A glance up confirmed that the only player in front of him was the portly prop Phil John, a player with the pace off the mark of a tectonic plate and the turning circle of a battleship. So Matawalu made his move. He tapped the ball and raced off to the left, a shimmying, dancing run that took him to within a few yards of the try line. A couple of phases later, Glasgow had their first score, touched down by Ryan Grant.

There had been a concern that the selection of Matawalu on the wing, rather than the scrum-half berth in which his extraordinary skills were most often paraded last season, would have left the Fijian wizard isolated, that his powers would be wasted without that constant involvement in the play. His early contribution last weekend was a thumping refutation of that suggestion.

He ended the game with the man-of-the-match award, although things have reached the point where it would be a more newsworthy event if he did not pick up that accolade. Along the way, he had taken over from Chris Cusiter and done a 12-minute shift at scrum-half, a period curtailed when he picked up a yellow card for some silly footwork - it looked all the sillier as he missed his intended target - with five minutes left on the clock.

Points, prizes, punishment: just a typically busy day for the human buzz bomb that is Matawalu. In the modern world of structured rugby, of roles and responsibilities and systems, players are not meant to change teams on their own, but the man who would come to be known as the Weegie from Fiji did exactly that when he pitched up at Glasgow a year ago. Things had looked bleak when Cusiter was sidelined with a serious shoulder injury, but Matawalu filled the breach brilliantly, adding dimensions to what the side could do.

Only Leinster figured him out. When they hosted Gregor Townsend's team last March, they went into the game - the regular PRO12 season clash, not the play-off two months later - with the belief that the key to stopping Glasgow was to stop Matawalu. It was and they did. The Glasgow forwards failed to protect their playmaker, and he was caught in possession time and again. It was a harsh lesson learned.

With Cusiter back in the side, and back near his best as well, it seems that Matawalu will have to get used to the wing berth he occupied last weekend and will fill again against Toulon in the Heineken Cup in the Stade Mayol today. Not that he will ever get used to dutifully trotting up and down the touchline. Even in the wider position, Matawalu likes to go looking for work.

Toulon might want to go looking for him today. Going forward, Matawalu is one of the wonders of the rugby age, a genuinely unique talent, but his defensive qualities have yet to be confirmed. Which is not to say he is actually suspect in that department, simply that he has not shown what he can do under the kind of pressure Glasgow will inevitably face in the south of France this afternoon. There are no question marks against his raw courage or tackling ability, but you can only tackle a man or catch a ball if you are in the right place to do it.

"Last season was my very first in a professional team," said Matawalu, whose invitation to join Glasgow came after a mesmerising performance for Fiji against Scotland in Lautoka last year. "I just keep working on my weaknesses. I take apart the good things and I learn from my weaknesses."

The problem for Matawalu is that his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. His scuttling breaks thrilled the Scotstoun fans last season, but a good number of them ended not with a try, but a stern finger-wagging from captain Al Kellock. Given the height and age differences between the two players - Kellock being 12 inches taller and eight years older - there was an almost comic dimension to the scolding. In essence, Kellock wanted a more cool-headed approach. A little more brain, a little less bravado.

Matawalu smiled shyly when the issue came up. "I always tell them we just play what is in front of us," he shrugged. "It can make a try. We take what is in front of us and just play."

And, in fairness, few players have ever been as effective as Matawalu with the off-the-cuff approach. His harvest of eight PRO12 tries last year was an astonishing figure for a scrum-half in the modern game, but he could probably claim the most significant assist in many more touchdowns as Glasgow topped the try-scoring table with a total of 66.

It is hard to imagine the Matawalu knife cutting through the Toulon beurre quite so easily today. The reigning Heineken Cup champions do not have that French insouciance about conceding tries so long as they can score more than the other lot. Their Anglo-Saxon and southern hemisphere contingents have brought a sterner set of values to the Provencal club. In nine Top 14 games this season Toulon have conceded just seven tries. Toulouse, the next most miserly side, have shipped 11.

That said, Glasgow's line has been crossed just twice as they have won all five of their competitive outings to date. They have been less impressive at the other end of the pitch - they have yet to pick up a single try bonus point - but Matawalu's return from injury last weekend brought back at least some of the sharpness they had been missing.

And the confidence. He has a healthy respect for Toulon's galaxy of stars, but an even healthier realism as well.

Matawalu said: "They have two hands, we have two hands. They have two legs, we have two legs. Maybe the [edge of] experience will be there for them, but nowadays everyone knows their strengths and weaknesses. So we will see what happens. This game means everything for us, for the team, for the management, for the supporters too. It's the first Heineken Cup game and they are the defending champions. It will be tough because they are defending champions and because the game will be held over there. But we will do whatever it takes."

Maybe it is a family trait. The story goes that Matawalu's rehab programme for a foot injury that kept him out for the first few weeks of the season, included sending photographs of his foot to his mother, Adi-Aluesi, back home in Fiji so she could pray for his recovery. "She kept on praying for me, for the injury to improve," he said. "My dad and mum always told us to pray."

A spot of divine providence would not go amiss in Toulon today. Nor, for that matter, another spot of Matawalu magic.