Glasgow’s Euro dream lay in tatters after their sloppy Santa impersonation act at the Arms Park as they lost 29-20 to Cardiff Blues.
Gregor Townsend’s troops produced one of their shoddiest ever Heineken Cup displays gifting Cardiff almost all their points.
The Warriors shot themselves in the foot when it mattered by making a spate of mistakes at crucial times and now they need a highly unlikely sequence of results to sneak into the knockout rounds.
Glasgow had made a blistering start in terms of pace and determination as they pinned the Blues back in their own half.
However, Lions prop Ryan Grant then handed Cardiff the chance to take the lead against the run of play when he illegally barged into a ruck shoulder first but Leigh Halfpenny pulled his angled effort wide.
Yet another ruck offence gave Halfpenny the opportunity to make amends and he confidently slotted it.
Glasgow’s haphazard ruck play was becoming a major problem and when Chris Fusaro ploughed over the top, long-distance specialist Rhys Patchell doubled the Blues’ lead from inside his own half. Duncan Weir was next to commit a howler, dropping the ball behind his own line and the slip proved so costly.
Cardiff kept their composure to create the gap for Patchell to burrow over, giving Halfpenny a simple conversion in the process.
Stuart Hogg was then bundled into touch as he ambitiously tried to run clear of the danger zone and seconds later Halfpenny clipped over another penalty to stretch the gap to 16.
Glasgow began to click again in the build-up to the break and they earned fresh hope as Maitland dashed in for fine touchdown, goaled by Weir.
However, another soft penalty for Halfpenny six minutes after the restart enabled Cardiff to snatch back the initiative.
Weir replied in identical fashion to keep Warriors in the hunt and repeated the dose midway through the half when he was the victim of a high challenge.
However, Halfpenny jumped back into the spotlight to take his penalty tally to four with just 10 minutes left and Cuthbert raced 80 metres for the clinching interception try.
Substitute Leone Nakawara bagged a second Glasgow try but it was too late.