Their own 'Mad Max' may have driven off into the distance last year, but in his place another kind of road Warrior has emerged in Glasgow with, it seems, an added toughness.
Max Evans' departure came soon after his brother Thom's terrible injury, and coincided with another serious injury to DTH van der Merwe, the club's Canadian winger. Their every attempt to find a cutting edge was blunted.
Sean Lineen, their head coach, had hailed the discovery of one "X factor" player after another, only to be undermined by either injury or a lack of finance. A different way had to be found.
Lineen made his name as a backs coach who loved to play a fast, handling game, just as he had as a player. Yet now he showed his coaching maturity by adopting the sort of pragmatism employed by Jim Telfer, who inspired the team that would claim Scotland's greatest success, the 1990 Grand Slam, with Lineen on board.
In that campaign they won all four games while scoring just six tries. That ratio of 1.5 tries per game is something Scotland supporters would give a great deal for right now, but it is a low strike-rate for a winning team. However, this season the Warriors have forced their way into RaboDirect Pro12 contention by similar means. Nineteen matches have produced just 28 tries, a tally that only Connacht and Newport Gwent Dragons, the weakest of the Irish provinces and Welsh regions, have failed to surpass.
Yet since September, the opening month of the campaign, Glasgow have played 15 league matches, losing just once. Their toughness is best demonstrated by their unwillingness to be beaten away from home. Defeat at the Scarlets is their only loss on the road since the opening day in Ulster.
Tonight, however, they head for the spiritual home of such resilience as they visit Munster, a team reeling from the unprecedented shock of losing consecutive home matches and without three renowned players in Paul O'Connell, their formidable captain, Ronan O'Gara, their insatiable points accumulator and Keith Earls, their most potent running threat. They may appear vulnerable, but one Glasgow player at least knows better.
Ruaridh Jackson, Scotland's World Cup stand-off, returned to the national team following injury in Dublin last month and partook of a chastening experience. Ireland were without three talismanic figures in O'Connell, Brian O'Driscoll and Shane O'Brien. Their supposedly under-strength side took Scotland apart.
Jackson's recall to Glasgow's starting XV tonight signals a determination to take the game to Munster, but he knows what is coming. "It's quite a big pitch at Musgrave Park and there's plenty of space to play," he began, before that was challenged. "Well, okay," he said with a laugh. "We might try to play an open game, but they'll doubtless be trying to go through us."
Indeed they will, and this is likely to be the truest test so far of the hardness Glasgow believe they have added to their play. In their favour, this match is not being staged in the cauldron that is Limerick's Thomond Park but in the rather more douce city of Cork, famed for its hospitable cosmopolitanism. Glasgow's only previous away win against Munster was achieved there four years ago and even some of those too young to have been involved in that match have encouraging memories of playing there.
"We played there last season, played pretty well and almost beat them. We only lost by two points to a last-ditch Ronan O'Gara kick," Jackson recalled. "It's a smaller ground than Thomond, but their fans are still right on top of you and it's pretty intense."
Glasgow make the trip with the belief drawn from having proved themselves so difficult to beat. "The importance of the matches we're playing just keeps building and building and building [but] I wouldn't say we were nervous so much as excited about this match," added Jackson. "We're really buzzing and can't wait for the game."
His head coach put it only slightly differently. "Munster's physicality will be huge, as we saw against Ulster last week, and we have huge respect for them, but there isn't fear any more," said Lineen.
So says a man who is set to jump off a 100-feet high roof tomorrow in aid of charity and who has had to be even braver in some of his selections for this match. "We've made changes and left out players like Ryan Grant who has been one of our players of the season, but it hasn't weakened the team at all when you see that he's being replaced by Jon Welsh, who did so well on his international debut last month," Lineen noted. "It has all been about building up that squad strength."
Tonight and over the next three weeks that strength is, mentally and physically, about to be tested to the full.
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