Townsend's men were nine points down at Scotstoun at the interval on Saturday, before twelve unanswered second-half points handed them a 21-18 GUINNESS PRO12 victory.
But the 24-year-old flanker acknowledged that with their 12-game unbeaten GUINNESS PRO12 home record hanging by a thread after a succession of errors, it was a case of winning ugly.
"We got a bit of a telling off at half-time and it did the trick, got us going again and gave us the belief that we could play our rugby and get back in the game," he told the Scotsman.
"Plus, Josh Strauss was adamant that we really needed to raise our intensity but still keep cool heads and just believe in ourselves and our ability to do what we had to do and I guess that all really fired us up.
"But Munster were top of the table coming to us and they were in our faces from the first whistle, so it was great to come out in the second-half, put things right and get the win.
"Now we can take a huge amount of self-belief and confidence from it, as there are not many sides who turn around a nine-point deficit to Munster in the second-half."
The win set a new record for successive home victories in the GUINNESS PRO12, and gave Glasgow some momentum heading into the vital 1872 Cup double-header with rivals Edinburgh over the Christmas period.
And Harley also commended the performance of Jonny Gray after a match-winning try in the 71st minute, who he insists is playing intelligent rugby far beyond his years.
He said: "It's really hard to believe he is just 20 years old with the tackles he makes. Plus, there are the line-out calls and the way he deals with the pressure in tough situations.
"Also at the restart, when we had gone ahead, he has taken that at full height and won us the ball back and that was really important in the context of the game."
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