The European door has usually slammed in Glasgow's face by this stage of the season, so they can feel satisfied with the fact that there are still chinks of light to be seen.

However, Gregor Townsend's side left themselves with a mountain to climb with this flat performance in front of a subdued Scotstoun crowd. If they are to go through to the quarter-finals for the first time they will need to beat both Montpellier and Bath next month.

The first part of that double should be well within reach as Montpellier are out of the Champions Cup already. However, taking on a resurgent Bath side away from home is a taller prospect altogether, and Glasgow will have to find a level they never got remotely close to in this game.

Did they lack belief against Toulouse? There was a feeling that the Warriors players were critically short of confidence in some areas, and never really backed themselves against the four-times European champions. The underlying quality (and sheer physical size) of the opposition was obviously a challenge for Glasgow, but they played a maddeningly reserved kind of game and lacked intensity throughout.

"We're obviously very disappointed," said Townsend. "We didn't play at our best. We knew we would have to be close to our best to win and part of the reason we didn't was the quality of the opposition.

"I thought Toulouse were excellent in defence, but our errors were also part of it. We missed accuracy in our tackling and our handling at times. Getting to grips with the referee's interpretations of the ruck area was a problem and that gave the opposition points.

"The effort was there. The fact we were really pushing at the end was great to see. But the game never really kicked off and I felt the players were looking for confidence, knowing Toulouse are a tough team to play against."

Glasgow seemed to get stuck in a low gear in the earliest minutes of the game, and it was only in the second half, and even then only in patches, that they found the higher ratios. They added spark when they emptied their bench, but at the finish it was difficult to think of a single moment when they had even a sniff of a try. To add to their frustration, Toulouse were not a great deal sharper, getting all their points from penalties by scrum-half Sebastien Bezy. When they go through the video, the Glasgow players and coaches will appreciate that Toulouse really were there for the taking.

What Toulouse did do well was stop Glasgow from playing. Not in an up-the-jumper, negative way, but simply with the speed and strength of their front-line defence. Glasgow never had go-forward, never had rhythm, never had tempo. They recycled the ball better than they did in France last weekend, but they were running into some pretty solid objects with it.

Glasgow also made an alarming number of errors, not all of them due to the menace of the Toulouse defence. On top of which, the line-out that served them so well in their wins against Bath and Montpellier suffered a bad misfire, especially in the first half. The stadium announcer exhorted the crowd to make some noise, but the most common backdrop was provided by their groans. It was a day when nothing quite went according to plan.

Trailing 6-3 at half time, the Warriors did pick things up a little after the break, but still their mistakes mounted. Captain Josh Strauss tried manfully to get things going, but the pieces refused to fit together. By the end of the third quarter, Toulouse had stretched their lead to 12-3 with another couple of penalties by Bezy.

"We let ourselves down with errors and discipline," said Strauss. "Toulouse are a great team with big men and great defensively and they showed that in both games, but it's about being smart and getting around that.

"If you make as many errors as we did, you get frustrated with yourself because you feel the momentum breaking every time. You try and flush the mistake and get on with the next thing, but the cumulative mistakes get to you."

With all their replacements on the field, Glasgow were unquestionably a much-improved side. Duncan Weir, who had taken over from Finn Russell, clipped over penalties to bring Glasgow to within one score of their opponents, but they could not get the decisive points. It said much about their performance as a whole that they were back-pedaling into their own 22 at the death, having spilled the ball further up the pitch.

There was a suggestion that they might have been more ambitious with the second of Weir's penalties and gone for a try instead. However, Townsend was satisfied that the correct call was made.

"I thought we would get another chance to win the game. We would definitely do that again," he said.

Glasgow: S Hogg; S Maitland (S Lamont, 58), R Vernon, A Dunbar (P Horne, 63), T Seymour; F Russell (D Weir, 58), H Pyrgos (N Matawalu, 58); R Grant (G Reid, 51), P MacArthur (F Brown, 70), J Welsh (E Murray, 51), T Swinson (L Nakarawa, 63), J Gray, R Wilson, R Harley, J Strauss (captain).

Toulouse: C Poitrenaud (V Clerc, 70); Y Huget, Y David , G Fickou (L McAlister, 50), M Médard; J-M Doussain, S Bézy; G Steenkamp (V Kakovin, 50), C Flynn, C Johnston (K Pulu 69), J Tekori (R Millo Chluski, 74), Y Maestri, Y Nyanga (G Lamboley, 70), T Dusautoir (captain), L Picamoles.

Referee: Wayne Barnes (England).

Attendance: 6894