Despite the French sides lacklustre start to their own domestic campaign, the much more experienced home side would power home a bonus point victory with six tries as Booth’s side would be outclassed on the day.
The Ospreys though would be their own worst enemy in the match, seeing George North, Harri Houston and Morgan Morse all sent to the sin bin at various stages for poor discipline as frustration got the better of the visitors.
Youngsters Houston and Morse learning a valuable lesson the hard way having come in late to replace captain Morgan Morris and wing Keelan Giles who were late withdrawals from the starting lineup.
Former All Blacks winger George Bridge would lead the home sides charge running in two tries in the first 40, centre Auguste Cadot also picked up a brace, whilst there were scores for scrum-half Leo Coly and hooker Vano Karkadze in the emphatic victory.
The Ospreys did pick up a solitary try of their own from scrum-half Reuben Morgan-Williams just after the interval, but the damage had already been done with Montpellier much more clinical with their execution and physical gameplan, particularly in the breakdown.
“It’s always difficult when you are away in Europe and when you’re against a very big and physical Montpellier team,” said Booth.
“They probably had a bit of last year smarting around them. We got in the right field positions but couldn’t convert where we are normally so good.
We spoke about it at half-time. What we wanted the second-half to look like. I was proud of the effort, which was great, but if you are getting physically outmuscled like we were you have got to be accurate.
“You have to give credit to Montpellier though. This won’t be a defining game for us, we are very disappointed of course because we take Europe seriously but there are still two more games, and we will see where it takes us.”
Focus now moves on to next Tuesday’s URC Boxing Day trip to Llanelli to face the Scarlets, a derby day encounter where both sides will no doubt be trading more than one of two punches and be desperate to get back to winning ways.
“You don’t have to send any message to the players [for the Scarlets match], everyone knows this is the calendar game,” continued Booth.
“We went well at home, but they will be smarting from that and their loss last week.
“They have come out already to say how important this is, being a game of the season for them.
“We need to make sure we are mentally, physically and tactically prepared as we normally are and then we will go into that hostile environment with all the right information, attitude and skillset. It is a massive game.”
[Lead image: Ospreys Rugby]
