JACKSON COLUMN: Warriors lead the PRO12 charge in Europe

Celtic teams have won eight matches from the two opening rounds of the Champions' Cup compared to seven French victories and five English. On top of that, the redoubtable Warriors of Glasgow lead the way, the only one of 20 qualifiers to win nine points out of a maximum ten.

The six other unbeaten contenders are locked on eight points - Leinster, Munster, Toulon, Toulouse, Harlequins and Racing Metro. The first four have won Europe's major title eleven times between them, which makes the Warriors' presence in their midst all the more significant.

If there were still those disinclined to take them seriously after their five-try thrashing of Bath at Scotstoun, they know better now. The victory at Montpellier against a club fourth in the French championship has left nobody in any doubt that the Warriors mean business.

They will be back in the south of France soon enough for another severe test of their winning knack. The resumption of European activity in the first week of December takes the PRO12's most consistent performers to confront Toulouse in arguably the tie of the round.

Europe, in a sporting sense, hasn't belonged to Glasgow since Celtic's all-Scottish team famously beat Inter Milan to become the first British winners of the continent's supreme club competition almost 50 years ago.

The city's rugby squad will have good reason to be mightily miffed should their flying start not ensure they break new ground by reaching the knock-out stage for the first time.

Having beaten Irish, Welsh, Italian, English and French opponents over the last two months, they will not be the least bit daunted at the prospect of returning to a city, Toulouse, where they lost three times between 2004 and 2010 - their sole triumph in that period a 33-26 victory in what was effectively a dead rubber for the Warriors. Montpellier will readily testify that the Warriors are made of sterner stuff these days.

Head coach Gregor Townsend rightly acclaimed the 15-13 victory as one of their very best results. "It wasn't our best performance," he said. "But it certainly showed a lot of courage and defensive endeavour."

Leinster may have put them to the sword in last year's PRO12 Final but those who have charted the Warriors' upward curve as consistent winners will not be surprised by their impact on European affairs.

They finished last season winning nine out of ten and Treviso's visit to Scotstoun on Friday evening raises the prospect of the Warriors making it eight out of nine this season.

Only six other teams negotiated the first two rounds of Europe's premier tournament by winning both - Toulouse, holders Toulon, Racing, Harlequins, Munster and Leinster.

Munster seized control of their pool in the finest Limerick tradition, their relentless power game forcing Saracens into submission before a packed Thomond Park.

Clermont, for all their accepted status as the best club not to have won the trophy, will hardly relish the prospect of going there when the tournament restarts in the first week of December.

The same can be said of Harlequins in respect of their pre-Christmas engagement at the Aviva Stadium with Leinster, two more of Europe's unbeaten elite who collide on successive weeks in rounds three and four.

Under Jamie Heaslip's command of a depleted force the former champions has amounted to a formidable statement of intent. They came from behind in the rain and wind of Dublin to overtake Wasps and again last weekend beneath a blazing sun in one of the heartlands of the French game.

Ian Madigan's seven penalties ensured there would be no repeat of what happened at Castres in the pool competition six years earlier. Leinster recovered from that to win the first of their three finals, overcoming Harlequins at The Stoop on their way despite the 'Bloodgate' controversy which landed the Londoners in trouble for stooping to an illegal substitution.

The next stop in Europe will take Leinster back to The Stoop in early December for the first time since with the return at the Aviva Stadium the following week. Their immediate concern will be Edinburgh at the RDS on Friday night and the urgent need to retrieve some lost ground in the PRO12.

Of all the European victories by the Celtic teams, none can have been more satisfying than the one achieved at Llanelli on Saturday night in what the locals proudly refer to as 'heart-and-soul rugby country'.

Having had nothing to show for running Toulon all the way the previous week, the Scarlets went into their tie against Leicester knowing that anything less than a win would almost certainly have left them without realistic hope of making the last eight.

Heaven knows, they owed Leicester some very belated pay-back for what the Tigers had done to them in semi-finals at football grounds in the East Midlands.

The Scarlets could have no complaints about losing the 2007 semi-final at the Leicester City stadium by some distance but the real heart-breaker happened five years earlier against the same opposition at Nottingham Forest's City Ground.

The 28,000 there that day witnessed something they had not seen before or since, a semi-final decided by quite the most outrageous penalty ever struck in the competition.

Tim Stimpson lined it up from long-distance before his captain, Martin Johnson, got across to instruct him to kick for the corner. The full back's towering kick smacked against an upright and from there onto the crossbar before bouncing over, enough for the Tigers to scrape through 13-12 a few weeks before they overcame Munster in the 2002 final.

Leicester have had more than their share of injury this season but the Scarlets had to overcome recurring disruption in the course of winning 15-3.

They lost their international lock Jake Ball before the match, others like Test centre Scott Williams during it and so many more that they ended up with a substitute wing packing down in the back row.

No wonder the crowd felt moved to sing their team home with a spontaneous burst of Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. The win will reinforce Scarlets' belief for their next assignment, in Belfast against an Ulster side reduced to one miserable point out of ten.

The Scarlets are home to Zebre on Saturday at the start of a period when international demands will stretch squad resources not just at the Scarlets but at a host of other clubs including Glasgow.

Nobody will be more challenged in that respect than the Ospreys, with their half backs (Dan Biggar, Rhys Webb) and seven-eighths of their pack (Nicky Smith, Scott Baldwin, Aaron Jarvis, Alun-Wyn Jones, James King, Justin Tipuric, Dan Baker) on Wales duty.

Connacht, with five of their team (Robbie Henshaw, Nathan White, Rodney Ah You, Kieran Marmion, Darragh Leader) in the Ireland squad, will test Ospreylian resources at the Liberty Stadium on Friday night when the leadership of the PRO12 will be at stake.

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