Joe finished off the work of Andy Craig, Dan Parks and Calvin Howarth to score a fine try for Glasgow

At the 10am pitch inspection, Toulouse's coach Guy Noves was reluctant to play on the Hughenden mud bath and, since persistent rain fell throughout the day, conditions had not improved by the time the evening kick-off arrived. Not that the miserable weather seemed to trouble the Frenchmen as they ran out easy winners in the Glasgow gloom, scoring four tries for a bonus in the process.

The Toulouse substitutes' bench spoke volumes about the visitors' expectations last night since a clutch of international regulars filled the red reserve shirts. Sure enough it took last year's losing finalists just seven minutes to register their first touch down after wing Vincent Clerc stepped inside Calvin Howarth and found his fullback Nicolas Jeanjean lurking on the touchline.

When scrum-half Jean-Baptiste Elissalde's conversion went over via the right hand upright Glasgow probably felt it was not going to be their night. Dan Parks, restored to the fly-half berth for this match, got his side on the score sheet with a penalty but that proved a brief interlude to what was fast becoming one-way traffic.

A break under the Glasgow posts by Elissalde led to another try on 17 minutes for lock Gregory Lamboley and Glasgow's woes worsened with the departure of prop Lee Harrison with a quarter of the match gone. Centre Florian Fritz took advantage of the disruption to the home scrum as he pounced on a turnover and outpaced Andy Craig for his side's third try 10 minutes before the break.

At least Glasgow has the consolation of scoring the best try of the match, a length of the field effort that was finished off by lock Joe Beardshaw. Howarth made a break on his own 22-yard line and found Craig in support with what might have been judged a forward pass in a closer match.

The former Scotland centre wiggled this way and that before finding himself up against Cédric Heymans in a race to the line and he wisely gave Beardshaw the glory.

Toulouse enjoyed the advantage of the slope after the break and an early Elissalde penalty killed off any though of a home revival. But after conceding three first-half tries Glasgow showed some character in allowing the French to cross their line just once in the second half. It took some dogged defending as the visitors set up camp in the Glasgow 22.

It was a victory of sorts for the beleaguered home defence when Elissalde opted to kick his second penalty rather than seek that elusive fourth try which eventually arrived on 68 minutes.

Almost inevitably it came on just about the only occasion in the entire half that Glasgow worked their way into the Toulouse 22. A turnover ball was moved wide quickly and Clerc went the length of the pitch, leaving the defence for dead.

Report from Iain Morrison's Guardian article.