On a fairly dour, dark Glasgow day that was as bleak as an image of a drookit raven perched on a withering tree branch, it was probably just as well Leone Nakarawa didn’t need to do much acclimatising to his surroundings.

“The weather is not a big problem for me and the main thing is that I feel welcome from the club and all the boys,” said the Fijian lock, who is back for a second stint with the Glasgow Warriors until the end of the campaign after a successful first spell which ended in 2016.

The dear green place remains something of a home from home. “I feel like I never left,” he added. “I went for a holiday for three years and came back.

“It didn’t feel weird at all coming back to the changing room. I see some of the same faces I saw a few years ago. I feel like one of the boys again.”

Embraced with great gusto by all and sundry at Scotstoun, the welcome he has received in this neck of the woods is in stark contrast to the fairly acrimonious scenes that surrounded his departure from Racing 92, the Paris-based outfit where Nakarawa had spent the last three years.

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Having reported back late from World Cup duty, the cheesed-off top brass at the French club dismissed Nakarawa for “abandoning his post” while displaying what they perceived as a “total lack of team spirit and marked insubordination.” Nakarawa was keen to tell his side of the story, though.

“I always come back one week or two weeks late because Fiji is so far away,” he explained.

“Travelling to Fiji is three days. I had an issue with my house. I was supposed to spend just two weeks after the World Cup but then something was wrong with the construction and there was a big delay.

“So I just asked the club [Racing 92] if I can stay for another two weeks just to finish everything.

“You then see in the media that they threatened to sack me, but I just told them that there are a lot of things more [important] than rugby and one of them is family, because rugby will be finished one time but family will be with you a long time.

“So I told them: ‘If you want to do anything then you do anything, but I am staying these two weeks to look after my family because everything is my family’.

“I think it was not acceptable to the Racing club, so I was surprised [they released him] at first but after that I thought; ‘that’s it, I think my family is more important than playing rugby’.”

The Warriors family, meanwhile, remains close to his heart. This is the place, after all, where Nakarawa began his professional career and the opportunity to return to this cherished auld haunt was hard to turn down.

“I’d talked to clubs from France and even in the Premiership and the PRO14, but everything started here,” said the gold medal-winning Olympic sevens player.

“This is where my professional rugby career started so that is the main reason why I chose to come back to Glasgow. It was easy for me.”

After a prolonged break, Nakarawa is still getting back up to speed and it remains to be seen when he will return to the frontline of competitive action.

“It is up to the coaches but for the time being I am just learning the plays and getting my fitness back,” he said.

“I just started two weeks ago. One of the things I’ve learned from my past few years playing rugby is about recovery. You have to rest well.”

And where does he do this rest and recovery? “On Ryan’s sofa,” he said of his temporary sleeping arrangements at his team-mate Ryan Wilson’s pad.