Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby were back in Heineken Cup action this weekend with mixed results for Scotland’s two professional sides.

Edinburgh travelled to Cardiff on Friday evening hoping to make it three wins from three but were not able to match the Blues’ skill levels or physicality and ended up losing 25-8 in a match where the Scots were always struggling whereas Cardiff seemed to cross the gainline at ease.

Cardiff stand-off Dan Parks, the former Glasgow playmaker, was once again the scourge of Edinburgh and his four penalties, two drop-goals and conversion of Alex Cuthbert’s second-half try, was enough to ease Cardiff to victory although Edinburgh can take confidence from the fact that their Heineken campaign is still very much alive despite the lack of a losing bonus point.

With Cardiff due at Murrayfield this Friday evening in the return match, they will have an immediate opportunity to make amends for what was a below par performance from many of their key men such as Greig Laidlaw and Tim Visser. The Dutch winger’s supply was cut off by a resilient Blues dog-leg defence although the big Dutchman showed some intelligent play in setting up Lee Jones for Edinburgh’s only try.

In Pool 2’s other match, Racing Metro were defeated at home by London Irish thanks to an impressive second-half comeback from the men in green who were trailing 14-10 at halftime thanks to the boot of Gaeton Germain, a try from Sereli Bobo and a drop-goal from Jonathan Wisniewiski. Second half Tries from Jonathan Spratt, Scottish centre Joe Ansbro and two from Adam Thompstone earned them a fully deserved bonus point and despite having already lost two games, the Premiership side are still in the mis for qualification but must win their remaining games in order to have any chance.

Glasgow Warriors held on to overcome Montpellier 20-15 at Firhill on Sunday afternoon thanks to the boot of Duncan Weir, a penalty from Ruaridh Jackson and a wonderful try from Federico Aramburu.

The French side were missing a handful of star players but were still dominant at the breakdown and demolished the Glasgow scrum in the first half leading to a try from scrum-half Eric Escande after prop John Welsh was sin binned in a match that saw three yellow cards inside 36 minutes.

Glasgow lead 12-10 at halftime thanks to Weir’s boot and the second half was a tense affair with neither side able to register a score until after the hour mark when Jackson replaced Weir at stand-off and landed a penalty to give Glasgow some breathing space.

With 5 minutes to play, Glasgow had a scrum on the left and the ball was moved wide by Chris Cusiter to Jackson who then brought impressive Full back Stuart Hogg into the line at pace to create a two-on-one for Aramburu to cross the line for a delightful score for the home side. Jackson was wide with the conversion.

The game ended with a frantic spell where Glasgow had opportunities to kick the ball dead but attempted one last score. Montpellier however were not about to lie down and ran the ball wide from their own posts, the ball eventually finding replacement number 8 Masi Matadigo who had enough gas in the tank to outpace the Glasgow cover and touch down in the far right hand corner to earn his side a bonus point, the conversion was again missed.

Glasgow will travel to the south of France next Saturday for the return fixture knowing full well that Montpellier will be back to full strength and an entirely different proposition although any points gained for the Scots would keep alive their hopes of a quarter final place.

The other game in pool 3 saw defending champions Leinster overcome a resilient Bath at the Rec thanks to six penalties from fly half Johnny Sexton to secure a 18-13 win with Matt Banahan crossing for the home side who are now effectively out of the competition with a difficult trip to the Aviva stadium in Dublin on the cards next Saturday.

Pool 1 is becoming the most entertaining of the groups thanks in part to the free-flowing style of Castres who, despite having already lost twice, comfortably defeated last year’s finalists Northampton Saints 41-22 in a match that saw 8 tries in total.

Ronan O’Gara was again the key man for Munster in their tight 17-14 win over the Scarlets in the top of the table clash at Parc Y Scarlets on Saturday. An early try from Aaron Shingler for the hosts was cancelled out by Nial Ronan after 30 mins. Three more O’Gara penalties were enough to edge out the Welshman and Munster will look forward to the return leg at Thomond Park next Sunday with key players like man of the match Paul O’Connell now back to their influential best.

In Pool 4 Ulster earned their expected five match points against Aironi on Friday night in a comfortable 31-10 victory at Ravenhill whilst French giants Clermont Auvernge defeated Leicester Tigers 30-12 thanks to two tries from impressive centre Wesley Fofana and one from Julien Malzieu. The French side will be disappointed not to have scored four tries especially when the Tigers had Manu Tualagi and George Chuter in the sin bin at once during the second half and the second leg at Welford Road next Saturday promises to be a cracker.

Pool 5 saw Saracens defeat Ospreys in front of 40,000 fans at Wembley stadium on Saturday night to stay on course for the quarter finals thanks to tries from Rhys Gill, Ernst Joubert and Chris Wyles along  with the boot of Owen Farrell. Ospreys earned their bonus point thanks to Dan Biggar’s four penalties and two tries from Ashley Beck.

In what many will see as the shock of the weekend, Treviso beat French side Biarritz 30-26 to keep alive their hopes of what would be a historic appearance in the quarter finals thanks to tries from Michele Rizzo, Robert Barbieri and Cornelius van Zyl, and to keep pool 5 wide open as every side is still in with a chance of qualification after three games.

In pool 6 Harlequins went down 10-21 to Toulouse at the Twickenham Stoop to end the Premiership side’s impressive unbeaten run, whilst Gloucester managed to bounce back from their opening round defeats with a gutsy 10-14 win in Galway against Connacht.

All this weekend’s fixtures are reversed for next weekend when the likely quarter final line up will begin to take shape.

You can follow Finlay on Twitter @finmorrison