As he admitted that his side’s European Champions Cup campaign was over Glasgow Warriors head coach Dave Rennie blamed a ‘dumb’ mistake which saw George Turner sin-binned as the crucial moment in the match.

His side had been leading by two scores when the hooker made the reckless challenge on French international No.8 Louis Picamoles that reduced his side to 14 men and Jonny Gray was subsequently to follow him into the sin bin in conceding a penalty try early in the second half.

“The first one was dumb. We were up 17-5, had all the momentum and it was our ball twenty metres out so it was disappointing,” he said.

“The frustrating part of that is that they scored 21 points when we had guys in the bin. We lost by seven and equally frustrating was how frivolous we were with the ball.

“I thought the first twenty minutes we were good but did not build any pressure. We would go one or two phases and turn it over. It looked like we were chasing the game from the 45th minute.

“We needed more composure. We felt we were a fit side and could stretch them but need more balance to our game. We tried to run round them all night and did not ask them enough questions. That’s it over.”

There had been a setback for Glasgow in the build-up when Callum Gibbins, their Kiwi flanker who has made a huge impression in his first season at the club, was ruled out with an achilles injury.

However they made an encouraging start to the game itself, a huge hit from hooker George Turner breaking up a Montpellier move and skipper Ryan Wilson seizing on the loose ball to set up a counter attack which ultimately took them into Montpellier territory where they earned a penalty that Finn Russell knocked over to earn a fourth minute lead.

Almost immediately they suffered a further personnel problem, however when centre Sam Johnson was forced out of the game with a suspected broken jaw, while the French side’s immediate response was impressive.

Former All Black stand off Aaron Cruden provided the inspiration, opening up the home defence before throwing a perfect miss pass to the left flank where Kelian Galletier’s drove through attempted tackles by both Finn Russell and Ruaridh Jackson to get to the line in the left corner.

Glasgow then took their turn to respond, setting up a close range maul and Ali Price looking left to find Leo Sarto coming infield off his right wing to step past Jan Serfontein and go in under the posts. They then moved into a commanding position just past the halfway mark in the opening half when, having battled their way in close again, Price this time went right, to the narrow side, to feed his stand off Russell whose clever reverse off-load committed two defenders and found George Turner cutting in from the right flank on an angle that took him into the space that had been created.

Russell converted again to extend the lead to 17-5, but it was an advantage they needed when Turner was sin-binned for barging Louis Picamoles in the back with the ball elsewhere. The challenge was sufficiently reckless and dangerous that the hooker was arguably lucky the sanction was not more severe.

In his absence Montpellier’s big men made their presence felt, a loping, but strong run from Nicholaas van Rensburn ripping a huge hole in the Glasgow defence and fellow lock Jacques du Plessis making a further dent in it around the 22 metre line before Galletier picked up at a ruck, saw space directly behind it and went over untouched.

Francois Steyn converted to get his side back within a score and they then grabbed the initiative just before the interval, earning maximum reward for showing ambition when they were awarded a penalty directly in front of Glasgow’s posts. Even though Turner was about to return to the field they kicked to touch and when the goal-bound driving maul was illegally hauled down by Jonny Gray he was doubly punished, conceding a penalty try and following his team-mate into the sin bin as they fell behind for the second time just before the interval.

They were made to pay an even heavier price for Gray’s misdemeanour when, just before his return eight minutes into the second half, the visiting pack powered over from close range, Jacques du Plessis claiming the touch down.

Montpellier then looked to be closing the match out with wave after wave of attack when a breakdown steal by Scott Cummings shifted momentum around again. From the turn-over Finn Russell’s clever chip behind the big Montpellier back line, bounced perfectly for Ruaridh Jackson on the right touchline, he fed Huw Jones and the centre, who had been quiet on his debut, then injected pace into the counter-attack, taking play deep into the opposition half before delivering the scoring pass for Sarto to claim his second try.

At 22-26 the match was back in the balance and even when Franz Steyn knocked over a penalty to make it a seven point gap with 10 minutes remaining the game was on a knife edge, but Glasgow could not find a way through.