Saints players and coaches were generous in their praise of the way their Scottish opponents took the game to them to hold a three-score advantage at 15-0 after 36 minutes at Franklin's Gardens.
Yet the way England's Aviva Premiership leaders overturned that lead has only reinforced belief in their own ability to go all the way in their pool campaign.
"What you can't do is under-estimate any side in the Heineken Cup, and we didn't do that," said Jim Mallinder, Saints' director of rugby. "Glasgow have a big, heavy pack, a back row that can get around the field and backs who can take their chances. However, I was very pleased with our composure."
Having experienced a similar start to last year's campaign against Celtic opposition, Mallinder knew they were looking at another early exit from European rugby's top tournament, but they rallied to cancel that out in a seven-minute spell either side of the interval.
"You do have worries about a repeat of last year and that visit from the Scarlets, which meant the tournament was pretty well over for us on the first day," he said. "We didn't panic, though, and the messages from between the posts were the right ones after we did concede those scores.
"It was important to stay in the game at that stage and in the second half we really dominated, and they didn't look like scoring."
The corollary of his message is that it could hardly have been a worse opening weekend for the two Scottish sides.
Edinburgh, last season's beaten semi-finalists, are now in the position Northampton were in a year ago, having lost at home in their opening match while, for all the promise of that first half-hour or so, Glasgow also let their opponents register a bonus point while failing to secure one of their own.
That means the Warriors must get the better of Ulster, last season's runners-up, over their two meetings, the first of which, at Scotstoun on Friday night, is win or bust for their chances of making progress in the event since the Irish province also claimed a full five points from their opening match against Castres.
However, Mallinder saw enough to believe that, even if Glasgow are now extremely unlikely to challenge for top spot in the pool, they can do damage to the prospects of Ulster and Castres before they meet again in January.
"I would think they would take a lot of positives from that performance, and they deserve to," he said. "They didn't win their last four games by fluke, so hopefully they can win some of the other games and make it easier for us."
*Tommy Seymour, the Glasgow wing, has been cited for an alleged dangerous tackle on the Northampton Saints wing, Vas Artemyev, on Sunday.
Former Scotland lock Nathan Hines has been charged with stamping on the Scarlets wing, Morgan Stoddart, during Clermont Auvergne's Heineken Cup match on Saturday.
Both complaints will be heard on Thursday by the European Rugby Cup commission.
