A ROUSING display of sustained ferocity allowed Glasgow Warriors to overcome an early red card and beat the team that cost them a place in last season’s Guinness PRO14 final with something to spare.

Encouragingly, as they head into the Heineken Champions Cup, the platform was laid by the forwards, who played with a level of intensity the

Scarlets could not deal with. Despite being a man down, the scrum was immense as Oli Kebble came off the bench to overpower the Welsh and they won the breakdown battle with a mixture of grit and guile.

The Scarlets could not cope. The least penalised team in the PRO14 going into the game gave away a staggering 17 penalties – almost three times as many as the six surrendered by Glasgow – as well as two yellow cards. Only a couple of moments of sloppy concentration as exhaustion set in late in the game allowed the Welsh to make a contest of it.

Those mistakes allowed the Scarlets to recover from 26-8 down to bring themselves within range at 26-20 with tries from Steff Evans and Clayton Blommetjies before Brandon Thomson kicked his fifth and final penalty to bring his personal haul to 24 points and seal the result. That should not obscure the reality that there was only one side that deserved the points.

All that despite a moment of clumsiness in the 18th minute by Alex Allan, the prop, that is likely to see him banned for the European matches. It’s not entirely clear what he was trying to do when his shoulder smashed into the head of Jake Ball, the Scarlets lock, but once Frank Murphy, the referee, had had his action pointed out, he had no hesitation ordering Allan from the field.

The incident forced Ball off under the concussion protocols, which will not help Allan’s case for mitigation when the disciplinary hearing is held, and meant his colleagues had to play 62 minutes against opponents that had won the previous four meetings with only 14 men.

They responded to the challenge, raising the intensity levels to a point where the Welsh could not cope and though the score was 3-3 when Allan went off, they took only three minutes to take the lead after the seven-man home scrum destroyed their opposition and Thomson kicked the second of his penalties.

The Thomson supershow continued when he found space outside the Scarlets defence to cross for the only try of the first half, which he converted himself.

The second half opened with a stroke of fortune as Nick Grigg, the centre, got the benefit of a lucky bounce to add the second score but there was a balancing piece of misfortune when Robbie Nairn, the wing, was denied a try on his first start when an earlier pass was ruled forward.

That illustrates the difficulty this match is going to pose for Rennie. He had put out an unashamed second string but they responded to the challenge so well it will be tough to drop them when his side head for Lyon and a Heineken Champions Cup match they must win to retain a chance of a place in the quarter-finals.

George Turner won the man-of-the- match award for a game where he won half Glasgow’s turnovers, was equal top carrier with Adam Ashe and was second only to the No.8 for distance gained; Thomson claimed the match-winning 24 points; Chris Fusaro led by example, running himself into the ground as he led the resistance. Yet with Fraser Brown, Adam Hastings and Callum Gibbins poised to return, none is likely to hold onto their places.

The coach does have decisions to make, though. Ashe, certainly put pressure on Matt Fagerson for the No.8 spot while Nick Grigg did the same to Huw Jones for selection at outside centre and George Horne is locked in a battle with Ali Price at scrum-half.

The intriguing one could be Nairn, who made more ground than any of his Glasgow colleagues, and was second only to Jonathan Davies, the Scarlets centre across the two teams.

While wings Tommy Seymour and DTH van der Merwe are likely to

play in Lyon, nobody could have predicted a week ago that Nairn, making his first start yesterday, might be next in line.