Glasgow Warriors put English giants Bath to the sword in hugely impressive fashion to get their European Rugby Champions Cup campaign off to the perfect start at a soldout Scotstoun.
The Scottish side scored five tries to one against a Bath team thought to be one of the form teams in the Aviva Premiership. But they were barely a factor in this Pool Four match.
Centre Mark Bennett bagged two scores and the others came from Tommy Seymour, Sean Maitland and Niko Matawalu. Bath’s sole try which had them briefly in the lead after 14 minutes was a gift from a home team mistake, scored by centre Jonathan Joseph.
Apart from that one blip there was only one team in it. Glasgow took a while to register the fourth bonus point try after going in to the half-time break 23-10 ahead, but their tenacious defence kept Bath at bay all day.
Duncan Weir added 11 points with the boot as Glasgow recorded maximum points against the pre-tournament favourites to win the pool.
An early George Ford penalty had Glasgow behind, but they regained the lead with a super opening try after fine lead up work by the outstanding Johnny Gray.
The 20-year-old lock sucked in defenders with a storming run inside the 22, and Weir’s inside pass found the quick-footed Bennett dodging past two tackles before crashing over, Weir converting.
Almost immediately however a steepling kick from Ford was fumbled by Stuart Hogg and Joseph reacted quickest to kick ahead, gather and score under the posts, the stand-off converting.
Weir landed a penalty but the key point of the game came when Glasgow successfully defended three rolling mauls on their own line and won turnover ball.
From there, they stormed upfield, Seymour won the ball in the air, and the ball was spread right for Maitland to storm over for the second try.
Before half-time Seymour scored his own try after a quick tap of a free kick inside the Bath 22 by Hogg, although the outstanding wing took a knock and stayed inside at half-time.
His replacement DTH van de Merwe nearly scored the fourth just after half-time but was adjudged to have knocked on, but although Bath enjoyed plenty of possession they faltered close to the whitewash.
The bonus point try came when replacement scrum-half Matawalu did his trademark dummy and dodge into space, kicked ahead and then regathered the ball to score with a flourish.
Weir converted that, and the fifth try when Bennett and van der Merwe combined on a breakout from their own half, the centre just staying onside to chase down the wing’s kick-ahead.