Glasgow victory signals strength of Scottish rugby

Glasgow Warriors were crowned the URC champions after a gutsy performance away to The Bulls.

Following Munster's away victory last year, Glasgow have shown that the URC travel issues can be overcome and the Irish province winning on the road in South Africa wasn’t an outlier. The obstacle became the way, Glasgow relished the chance to go away from home and cause an upset. They didn’t allow the travel plans to disrupt their opportunity of securing the title.

Glasgow beat the champions in an away semi-final and then the Bulls at 1,350m of altitude at Loftus Versfeld Stadium. You can’t say they did things the easy way. They struggled to put down any marker in South Africa when they played the Lions and Bulls in rounds 16 and 17.

However, they had time to turn their fortunes around and deservedly brought success back to Scottish rugby.

Question marks will remain around how the inclusion of the South African teams can be made more cohesive. The transition isn’t done yet, despite Glasgow winning the trophy and the drama of logistics being put to bed for another while. Uncertainty remains surrounding travel, short turnarounds between matches but most importantly, around funding sustainability.

Professional sport, and rugby in this instance, is on its knees economically. Multiple English clubs have gone bust, whereas the unions do more in the Celtic nations to prop up their regional and provincial sides.

Squads are being cut everywhere, tough decisions are being made and players are losing their jobs in an attempt to secure the future of the unions.

The Welsh regions are desperately trying to find a way to survive. The Ospreys making a quarter-final and top eight this year has been a major highlight and feather in the cap of a well