IT was a battle-scarred, bruised and broken Glasgow Warriors side that limped away from the Altrad Stadium in Montpellier after throwing everything they had into a failed attempt to get some credibility in the European Champions Cup.

Now they not only stand with four defeats from their opening four games in this year's tournament, but they picked up a lot of knocks, the most serious being to back row and captain Ryan Wilson, who had treatment on the field for an elbow to the throat, had to go off to have a cut to the head sewn up and then hobbled off permanently after damaging an ankle.

"He’s got a few bumps and bruises," acknowledged head coach Dave Rennie. "We’ll wait and see for next week [the 1872 Cup match against Edinburgh]. He’s moving around OK in the dressing room, but we’ll make a call later in the week.

"You’ve got two teams who the result means a lot to. It’s going to be physical. That’s all part of footy. Anything else we’ll leave up to the citing commissioner."

The really frustrating aspect of the game from Rennie's point of view was that he could see the players did enough build-up work to have won the game, but ultimately let in too many scores and let too many chances of their own go begging.

"I thought we played bloody well for a big chunk of the game" Rennnie said. "We created a hell of a lot of line breaks and put them under a lot of heat. We just didn’t score a couple of times when we should have.

"A couple of times, we were one pass away, or maybe a simple draw-and-pass rather than a miss pass. I’m disappointed not to get a result, but I was really proud of the effort. I thought we were really physical, played at a tempo to try and run them off their feet. We did a lot of that and had our fair share of opportunities. We probably should have got a result.

"I look at some of the guys we’ve got on the paddock – Matt Smith’s grown enormously over the past few weeks, Kiran McDonald got experience at this level and fronted really well, so it’s been good from that point of view.

Seeing these guys in a really tough pool, learning a bit more about them and them about themselves, hopefully it puts us in good stead for Europe next year. We certainly won’t be throwing it in with regards to Leinster and Exeter, you still want to test yourselves against the best teams in Europe so we’ll put our attention to that once we get through the next three games."

Two things made the difference for Montpellier: their maul and Nemani Nadolo, the huge Fijian powerhouse wing.

In the first half, when Glasgow were dominating the game and the scoreboard, the hosts were able to keep in touch through the power of their driving maul. They did enough to suck in the Glasgow defence and hand Nadolo a short range pick and drive for the line and then worked hooker Romain Ruffenach over for a second score.

It was the Scots who were playing the rugby though. There may have been an element fortune in Fraser Brown's charge down score in the opening minute but there was style and flair in both the other first-half tries.

They attacked in waves until Peter Horne found a gap to go over for the second score and then showed it was no fluke when they created space down the left for Alex Dunbar to take the ball to the line and Nick Grigg, his centre partner, to finish it.

That gave the Scots the lead at the break, but in the second half, the French switched tactics, trying to work Nadolo into space, and it worked in a way that will give Tommy Seymour, his opposite number, nightmares for ages to come.

Twice the Scottish wing was dumped on his backside trying to tackle the huge Fijian and both times Henry Immelman the Montpellier replacement centre, finished the move. Add a charge-down score for Benoit Paillaugue, the scrum half, and it was all to easy for the French.

After showing how to finish in the first half, Glasgow seemed to lose their cool after the break as the pressure came on. Though they did rescue the four-try bonus point with a score from George Horne, they also butchered two or three other scoring chances that might have allowed them to sneak the result, the most obvious coming when Ruaridh Jackson didn't spot support on his right after a long solo break.

"I’m pleased because it was tough, and to come out on top after a tough game is important," said former Scotland head coach Vern Cotter who is now in charge at Montpellier. "They asked questions of us. They came with a real attacking mindset and they were physical.

"We really had to go right to the end and for this group of players it’s really important to be able to play through those tough times. I thought Glasgow threw everything at us, changed their gameplan and were really effective. So it’s nice to win."

Scorers - Montpellier: Tries: Nadolo, Ruffenach, Immelman (2), Paillaugue. Cons: Paillaugue 4. Pen: Steyn.

Glasgow Warriors: Tries: Brown, P Horne, Grigg, G Horne. Cons: Horne (2), Russell

Montpellier: J Mogg (T Nagusa, 72); G N'gandebe, F Steyn, J Serfontein (H Immelman, 41), N Nadolo; A Cruden (E Sanga, 71), B Paillaugue; G Fichten (M Nariashvili, 48), R Ruffenach (B Du Plessis, 44 sin bin: 79-end), J Jonker (M Haouas, 63), N Van Rensburg, K Mikautadze (J Delannoy, 68), K Galletier (F Ouedraogo, 44), J Bardy, L Picamoles (C).

Glasgow Warriors: R Jackson (sin bin: 79-end); T Seymour (N Matawalu, 68), N Grigg, A Dunbar, L Jones; P Horne (F Russell, 60), A Price (G Horne, 68); J Bhatti (A Allan, 58), F Brown (P MacArthur, 63), Z Fagerson (S Halanukonuka, 41), K McDonald (S Cummings, 58), J Gray, R Wilson (C) (C Fusaro, 17-27, 63), M Smith, S Vunisa.

Referee: JP Doyle (England). Att: 11,000