Glasgow head coach Franco Smith insisted his side’s failure to convert more opportunities was the main reason for their six-try thumping by the Lions in Johannesburg.

The Warriors slipped out of the URC’s top two after a torrid second half in which they conceded 28 points without reply from 14-8 up before eventually slumping to a 44-21 defeat.

“They didn’t outplay us - we made errors,” Smith said. “We created opportunities. If Kyle Rowe’s ‘try’ that was held up had been allowed, the scoreline would have gone completely different in the first half. 

“From a tactical perspective, absolutely not. We know how the Lions play. But a loose kick a little bit too long, two turnovers at the breakdown, an intercept try… there are things we could have done better, I agree.

“A little bit of reward for the line breaks that we had would have been fantastic. We didn’t convert all our opportunities into points.

“Everything went right for the Lions. They played some good rugby and it was five turnover tries, so well done to them.

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“We have a couple of lessons to take home, but I don’t think anything went wrong. I just think we were unfortunate. We didn’t finish our opportunities. That was the message to the boys in the changing room.

“My mistake. I take full responsibility for that. We could have been more clinical with that side of things this week, so it’s maybe a good lesson now.

“Through this season a lot of expectation grew, and that’s always a negative ingredient. Tonight that expectation was obviously wiped off, so that is fantastic.”

Smith believed playing against opponents reduced to first 14, then 13 men, then 14 again might actually have worked against Warriors.

“I think in general we went a little bit off script,” he said. “We haven’t played against 14 or 13 players that often, and you get reward for what you’re doing and get a little bit over-excited.

“It’s another lesson for this team to take forward into the next part of the season.”

After finishing their two-game tour of South Africa with just two losing bonus points from last week’s 40-34 loss to the Bulls, Glasgow will need to lick their wounds over the next fortnight before a final regular-season home game against Zebre on 1 June prior to a home quarter-final.

“Obviously I’m disappointed,” Smith added. “I think we’re a better team than the scorelines reflected. I think we were well prepared physically, it wasn’t the heat or the altitude that caught up on us - we proved that last week against the Bulls by scoring a lot of points late in the game.

“In general our prep was good. We’re going to take some lessons, but the high number of points that we’ve given away is uncharacteristic of us.”