Rugby Brexit looked on course for completion by the end of March as the European Champions Cup got underway with Irish and French teams holding the upper hand for much of the weekend.

Ahead of yesterday’s last four fixtures in the opening round not a single team from mainland Britain had won a match, the tone having been set by Leinster on the opening night with their crushing defeat of Wasps.

Of the rest, Edinburgh came closest to generating a major upset as they returned home from Montpellier with a bonus point, having also denied their hosts one of their own as they went down 21-15.

Such was the visitors’ performance that Richard Cockerill, their head coach, was entitled to express frustration afterwards at the way they had failed to mark their return to Europe’s top flight with a victory over former Scotland head coach Vern Cotter’s side having finished the stronger, registering the only points of the second half through a try from Dougie Fife and twice denied tries in the closing minutes after having crossed the opposition line.

They had recovered from the loss of an early try to Henry Immelman with one of the best scores of the opening weekend, Bill Mata’s running power and handling skills both in evidence as he linked with his half-backs before their increasingly impressive skipper Stuart McInally provided the finish.

Defensive mistakes contributed to further tries for Benjamin Fall and Gabriel Ngandebe which put Montpellier clear, but the French side was ultimately hanging on at the end of a match that must generate some confidence that Edinburgh can make some sort of impact on their pool as they prepare for the visit to BT Murrayfield of even more vaunted French opposition this weekend in three-time European champions Toulon.

Saturday was packed with highly intense fixtures, the only team to fail to register so much as a bonus point being two-time former champions Leicester Tigers, who were over-powered by former Scotland forwards coach Dan McFarland’s Ulster as they ran in three second half tries in Belfast to turn a 3-0 half-time deficit into a commanding 24-10 win.

The closest encounter was also an Irish-English affair as Exeter Chiefs managed to hold Munster, another side that has twice previously won the competition, to a 10-10 draw and a late penalty try helped ex-Glasgow Warrior Finn Russell’s Racing 92 to what could prove a vital one-point win at the Scarlets.

However, the most dramatic finish of the day – albeit leaning towards farce in theatrical terms – took place elsewhere in the West Country as another clash of former champions saw Bath’s Freddie Burns quite literally throw away the chance to see off four-time winners Toulouse with the second of two appalling blunders.

The full-back looked to have redeemed himself after missing a penalty chance from directly in front of the posts with his team trailing 22-20 to the French side when he found himself clean through and needing only to touch the ball down to secure the win. Instead he blew a kiss to the crowd and jogged towards the posts, only for French international veteran Maxime Medard to sneak up on him and knock the ball out of his hands as he finally began casually to bend towards the turf.

The match having been the first to be shown live on free-to-air television in the UK for 15 years only maximised his discomfort, his blunder open to being considered a symbol of the sort of damage that hubris can generate. Burns may heal in time, not least because he is clearly highly a highly popular figure, but since they have back-to-back fixtures with on-fire holders to come in December, Bath’s bid already looks to have been incinerated.

An element of English pride was salvaged ahead of the Glasgow – Saracens match when Gloucester managed to squeeze out Castres and Newcastle Falcons were to produce the biggest shock of the weekend by winning at three-time champions Toulon, while there had been another surprise in yesterday’s other early match, Cardiff Blues produced arguably the biggest upset of the weekend when won in Lyon.

Since Gloucester and Exeter are both in the Pool 2, while Cardiff are in Pool 3 with Glasgow and Saracens, British involvement with Europe’s elite should be retained until the quarter-finals on the last weekend in March, but hoping for anything beyond that could be a different matter.