Glasgow Warriors boosted their Heineken Cup qualification prospects with victory but may regret gifting Montpellier a pool three lifeline in an error-strewn contest at Firhill.
Federico Aramburu’s late try seemed to have denied the French team anything from their trip to Scotland and ended their interest in the competition, but an injury-time score for Fijian Masi Matadigo as Glasgow naively went for more tries means next week’s return match in the south of France has meaning for Montpellier.
Warriors coach Sean Lineen said: ”Giving them that bonus point takes the gloss off a fantastic win a bit. We got a bit carried away trying to score, and going from two metres from their line to them scoring at the other end shows what they’re capable of.”
He added: ”We’ve got to there with a realistic ambition of winning but if we play like we did in the first half today, we’ll be 30 points down. We need to make sure we go across there, get the basics right.”
Duncan Weir’s kicking kept Glasgow just ahead for much of the game with Ruaridh Jackson joining in until Aramburu’s try from man of the match Stuart Hogg’s break clinched victory, and Lineen was delighted with the return of Rory Lamont.
The coach said: ”He’s buzzing just now we didn’t seem to want to give him the ball in the first half but he really enjoyed getting involved in the second 40 minutes.”
Both teams seemed to be suffering from a Christmas night out hangover for the Sunday lunchtime kick-off, with a succession of basic mistakes early on.
Weir booted two penalties to one from Martin Bustos Moyano, but Montpellier survived the yellow carding of wing Pierre Berard for tackling Aramburu in the air and took control on the half-hour.
Ryan Wilson’s spill of a kick off gave the French an attacking scrummage and after three successive penalties against him Warriors prop Jon Welsh was sin-binned.
A penalty try seemed certain as Montpellier opted to scrum again but instead teenage scrum-half Eric Escande darted off the base to score the opening try, Moyano converting.
Oddly the French were penalised at the next scrum and Weir landed the kick from halfway, then Vincent Bost saw the third yellow card of the half for taking John Barclay out at a lineout, allowing the 20-year-old to restore the Warriors’ lead from a metre inside his own half.
Weir missed a shorter chance early in the second half to stretch his side’s lead but the Warriors were bringing Lamont more into action while Hogg’s running almost opened up the French defence as Jackson replaced Weir.
Kellock and Gray pinched lineout ball, and Jackson stretched his side’s lead with another penalty from 35 metres before they scored the decisive try with five minutes left.
Quick lineout ball allowed Chris Cusiter to loop around Jackson and bring Hogg in at pace, the fullback putting Aramburu in for a simple score which went unconverted.
Instead of trying to close the game down, the Warriors tried to score more, but ended up conceding a breakaway try to replacement Matadigo to allow Montpellier the bonus point.