George Horne went over for Glasgow's first two tries

Warriors looked set to come away empty handed as they trailed 28-12 going into the last couple of minutes of a tough contest, but back-to-back tries from Rory Darge and Johnny Matthews earned two vital URC points for Franco Smith's side.

The defending champions were in touch at the break thanks to two George Horne tries, with Sharks narrowly in front through Jordan Hendrikse's boot and tries from Siya Kolisi and Aphelele Fassi.

Hendrikse stretched Sharks' lead further after the restart, before Grant Williams' try gave Sharks a 16-point lead with just 10 minutes to go.

With Gregor Brown in the sin-bin for a high tackle, Glasgow looked like they wouldn't have anything to show for their efforts but they stuck in to the end and scored an outstanding try to grab the two points.

Stafford McDowall punched a hole in midfield before passing out wide to Kyle Rowe who took the ball on before finding Matthews in support to go over in the corner.

The two points will be welcome but Glasgow will probably see this as a missed opportunity as indiscipline and sloppy errors allowed Sharks to build what proved to be a decisive lead.

Speaking after the game head coach Franco Smith said: "Obviously, I'm really encouraged by the fact that we kept on playing until the end. That is the type of people that [we] work and play with and I'm really, really proud of the effort they put in.

"The two missed conversions make a big difference. We could have just as well drawn the game. I felt they [the Sharks] did well to contain us. They didn't give us any line-outs or set-piece starts. We had three line-outs in the first half. We also didn't get the rub of the green from the referee's perspective. We got penalised and we didn't get any penalties off them.

"But I think we showed in the last five minutes that if teams are going to allow us to play, then we're really good at it. So, I have a lot to be proud of. I feel in general the whole team would have learned something from playing against top-quality players. The Springboks that we faced tonight were really good for the Sharks.

"They played out of their skins. Way better than I thought they would be because of the time away. They actually played really, really well and therefore, like our performance, it's a good point of reference for the rest of the season."

In a tough, physical encounter only one Warriors player has emerged so far with an injury concern.

"Nathan McBeth has taken a bit of a bang," added Smith. "It's medial collateral knee ligament [damage]. There were a lot of bangs. But it was just a classic international game. You have the best players of South Africa playing the best players of Scotland and you will always have some knocks."

Smith felt Gregor Brown's sin-binning for high tackle was harsh.

"For me, on the video, it didn't look like it was a yellow card," said Smith. "To be honest, it did influence us a little bit. But as a collective, we stepped up. So I'm not too worried about that fact. There's always going to be adversity in a game and the way we managed that period was good enough."

Glasgow captain Sione Tuipulotu told Premier Sports: "Massively proud of the effort, but we came here to win this game.

"We put ourselves in a position to do that, but there were a couple of moments we let slip and they will punish you for that.

"There was a period after half-time where we lost the kicking battle a little bit. We'll try to take what we did in the last 10 minutes into next week."

Glasgow's South African leg continues next Saturday against Stormers - a rerun of last season's quarter-final.