LONG READ Why it's Glasgow's time to come of age in the Champions Cup

Stade Felix Mayol does not hold the aura it once did, back in the glory days when Mourad Boudjellal’s Galacticos were marauding along the Cote d’Azur, smiting all in their path to claim three Champions Cup crowns on the bounce in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Euros were splashed. Lavish riches spent. The teamsheet read like a World XV. The place became an impregnable fortress manned by the game’s great warriors.

The lustre has faded these past few years. Still, as a proving ground for a team with cup-winning credentials, the Mayol is up there. The hordes throng in the compact streets around the stadium waiting for the players to arrive. The gladiators traverse a heaving gauntlet of Toulonnais diehards, walking a path paved with slabs bearing the names of the giants of yore. Wilkinson, Habana, Botha, Nonu, Bastareaud, Champ…

Then there’s the pilou pilou, the war cry bellowed before every home match. The opening line screams: “We, the terrible Pilou Pilou warriors who descend from the mountain to the sea.” The announcer stands pitchside roaring into his microphone and the masses holler right back. It’s the closest thing in club rugby to the All Blacks haka.

Toulon have lost three times from 14 home matches in 2024. They habitually whack the weaker Top 14 sides on the Riviera but there have been statement wins over Toulouse, Lyon and La Rochelle. Only Bordeaux-Begles, Munster and Ronan O’Gara’s serial champions have won here this calendar year.

Glasgow Warriors are the real deal. They have dynamited the notion Scots go to pieces when the pressure is on and trophies are at stake. Weak-minded teams don’t conquer Thomond Park and storm Fort Loftus in finals rugby. Their castling of the Bulls, high in their rarified eyrie, is the greatest feat in Scottish club rugby history.

Hopefully [the win over Sale] left a lot of our fans flabbergasted by how ambitious we are, how brave we are and how accurate we can be.

These men, and the extraordinary things they did, will forever be cherished but there’s a feeling they have only scratched the surface of their potential. The mark of a dynasty is in its refusal to dwell on success, to soften its mindset or dial down the intensity. The Toulon megastars of 10 years ago roused themselves and went again. Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United were not sated by a single Premier League. Roger Federer didn’t put his feet up when he won his first Wimbledon.

All the signs point towards Glasgow’s continued growth. They talk of winning back their URC title, rather than retaining it. That small distinction is important. And how they yearn to break new ground in Europe, where no Warriors team – not even those with Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg and Leone Nakarawa – has gone beyond the quarter-finals.

By half-time in their Champions Cup opener, Glasgow had scored five tries and led Sale Sharks by 21 points. George Horne scored a blistering 40-minute hat-trick, despite spending 10 of those in the sin bin. This was a Glasgow team missing Kyle Steyn, its captain; Jack Dempsey, its chief ball-carrier; Richie Gray, its lineout guru who has left for Japan; Adam Hastings, Stafford McDowall, Max Williamson and Sione Vailanu. They had 22-year-old lock Jare Oguntibeju playing his second first-class match in the pack and hooker Angus Fraser covering the back-row off the bench.

A performance for the ages from George Horne, started with this! @ChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/2rpJAF1RTQ

— Glasgow Warriors (@GlasgowWarriors) December 8, 2024

“There were so many contributors and that’s what makes us dangerous,” said the immense Sione Tuipulotu on Premier Sports.

Indeed, Glasgow can beat you in any number of ways. They can suffocate you with their maul or run you ragged with their backs. They’ve got heavy hitters and jackal fiends; hot-steppers and game-breakers. They have a dominant set-piece and a fearsome defence – most points scored this season and third-fewest conceded.

In Tuipulotu, they’ve got the best inside centre in the northern hemisphere and Huw Jones, one of the best outside centres, to partner him. They’re agile and adaptable. Their style of play changed markedly in the URC play-offs to combat the altitude and the Bulls. Their fitness – incredibly – told that evening and it tells again now, with no team scoring more URC points in the final 20 minutes of matches this season.

When Glasgow rotate – as they do plenty – each player, no matter how green, knows his role and follows the blueprint, the hallmark of excellent coaching. Tom Jordan could play 10, 12 or 15. Jamie Dobie might start on the wing rather than at scrum-half. Young pups have been trusted and proven their worth. Where Williamson, Euan Ferrie and Alex Samuel went before, hooker Gregor Hiddleston looks like this year’s breakout star.

Franco Smith is by turns calculating, stoic and ambitious. Plans will have been sketched out on the sprawling whiteboard nailed to his office wall. Glasgow have a good draw, as Champions Cup pools go. Sale look a pale shadow of the rugged Premiership finalists of two seasons ago. Toulon can be deadly but flaky. Racing, similarly, have a seam of gold but hardly represent the swashbuckling contenders of old.

And then there’s Danny Wilson’s Harlequins. Wilson, Smith’s predecessor, who was brutally sacked after Glasgow collapsed in the RDS. Wilson, who took his vengeance in the last 16 eight months ago, a match Glasgow should have seen out. Wilson, whose Harlequins stunned Bordeaux-Begles to reach the semi-finals for the first time. There’s a lot of retribution about Glasgow’s trip south next month.

Over the past year, the Warriors have progressed from a respected team to one talked about as serious challengers for European silver. You get the sense folk are rooting for them – not just Glasgow folk – to break the fierce stranglehold the continent’s superclubs hold over the tournament. In amongst the Leinsters and Toulouses and Bordeaux-Begles and La Rochelles, the Warriors were mentioned again and again by the expert panel at Premier Sports’ launch event. Sinking any of those juggernauts will be fiendishly tough, but Glasgow carry that pedigree. They must harness it inside the sizzling Mayol on Sunday afternoon.

“If we can bring some of that panache to Toulon, I think it’s a true reflection of how we want to try and play the game,” said Smith’s lieutenant, Nigel Carolan. “I think that’s where most questions will be answered.

“Hopefully [the win over Sale] left a lot of our fans flabbergasted by how ambitious we are, how brave we are and how accurate we can be.

“We’ve been regarded as the underdog, but we’ve proven now we can beat anybody. We don’t see ourselves as the underdog anymore and I think that has flipped on its head.”

Tuipulotu, the Scotland captain, was similarly frank.

“I looked everyone in the eye this week and said I really do believe we can win the Champions Cup.”

A match with Toulon stokes harrowing memories, of course. Glasgow were Challenge Cup darlings two seasons ago when Toulon battered them senseless in the Dublin final. The following year, a heavily rotated French side fetched up at Scotstoun and were seen off comfortably. Different team, different climate. This match will be different again.

Gabin Villiere è tornato al meglio della forma, un’ala pestifera dalle caratteristiche uniche

Baptiste Serin nella sua consueta versione predatoria pic.twitter.com/papZjyJVlE

— Lorenzo Calamai (@lorenzocalamai) December 8, 2024

Toulon have won four on the spin, putting the troubled Stormers away in seriously impressive fashion on Saturday afternoon. Dan Biggar and Paolo Garbisi are their fly-half options. Baptiste Serin is a wily customer at scrum-half, cruelly shoved out of the France reckoning by some bloke named Dupont. If Serin doesn’t play, it’ll be Ben White, who starts ahead of Horne for Scotland. Lewis Ludlam and Kyle Sinckler moved south from the Premiership to join Dave Ribbans. Puma Facundo Isa is a wonderful talent in the back-row and Gabin Villiere and Jiuta Wainiqolo assassins on the wings.

Toulon are better than they proved last season, when a callow Exeter and a Europe-obsessed Munster went to France and won. Their players and their punters will ask different questions of Glasgow than those they’ve grown adept at fielding on URC duty. It’s a Sunday shootout which will tell us much about the Warriors’ Champions Cup quest. It’s also a tantalising opportunity. This is Glasgow’s time to come of age.