GREGOR Townsend is confident that Glasgow Warriors will go on to bigger and better things in the coming seasons once he has moved on.

The head coach takes charge of the team for the last time in today’s 1872 Cup match against Edinburgh, bringing down the curtain on his five years in the hot seat.

That period has been the most successful in the Warriors’ history, with the 2015 PRO12 title being the obvious highlight.

But Townsend sees no reason why the success should stop just because he is leaving to take over from Vern Cotter as Scotland coach.

And he thinks that even the disappointments of this season, when the team failed to qualify for the PRO12 play-offs for the first time in six years, will help the squad learn to perform better under new coach Dave Rennie.

“The disappointments of this season and the learnings that we had will add or improve the team for next year,” Townsend said yesterday after naming his team for the cup game, which the Warriors go into with a 25-12 lead from the first leg back on Boxing Day.

“The coaching staff coming in, spearheaded by Dave Rennie, is a real strong fit for what works here - strong culture, hard-working players and a real skill and attack focus. I’m looking forward to seeing how they play and I know they’re going to improve and get better.”

Townsend’s record with the Warriors speaks for itself, but he insisted it was obvious when he arrived at Scotstoun back in 2012 that the team was going places.

“I always thought there was great potential here, and already there were a lot of good things happening,” he explained.

“The team had a really good defensive record the season before, which proved how hard they worked for each other. It was a solid base.

“What we tried to do was look to attack whenever the players felt there was an opportunity. The way the players responded and took that on was way ahead of what I expected that year, the first year - the amount of tries we scored was hard to believe, but that showed the ability of rugby players we had then and still have now.

“Today [the day before a game] is a day I love coaching, because the players set their goals, they discuss how they’re going to play, and they run the session. Tomorrow it will be them that win the game.”

Townsend will not be the only one saying goodbye to the Warriors fans - several of the players are also on the move, including Gordon Reid from the starting line-up and Sila Puafisi and Sean Lamont from the substitutes. Lamont, who has over 100 Scotland caps and more than 100 appearances for Glasgow, will hope to come off the bench for his final appearance before hanging up his boots at the age of 36.

Glasgow Warriors (v Edinburgh at Scotstoun today, 5.15pm, live on BBC 2 Scotland): S Hogg; T Seymour, A Dunbar, P Horne, L Jones; F Russell, A Price; G Reid, F Brown, Z Fagerson, S Cummings, J Gray, R Harley, C Fusaro, M Fagerson. Substitutes: P MacArthur, A Allan, S Puafisi, T Swinson, A Ashe, H Pyrgos, N Grigg, S Lamont.

Edinburgh: G Bryce; D Hoyland, C Dean, P Burleigh, B Kinghorn; D Weir, S Hidalgo-Clyne; A Dell, R Ford, S Berghan, G Gilchrist, B Toolis, J Ritchie, J Hardie, C du Preez. Substitutes: N Cochrane, M McCallum, K Bryce, F McKenzie, G Turner, S Kennedy, J Rasolea, R Scholes.