GLASGOW Warriors have been warned to cut out the penalty giveaways - or see their European Champions Cup ambitions fall at the first hurdle.

Head coach Gregor Townsend delivered the broadside in the aftermath of Saturday's Guinness Pro-12 bonus point win over Cardiff Blues.

But the win was achieved despite Warriors's offering up 19 penalties and two yellow cards.

And Townsend fears that indiscipline could prove costly this weekend when his side travel to Paris to take on big-spending Racing 92 in the European opener.

He said: "The scoreline goes down as a bonus-point win and ahead of the game we would certainly have taken that, but looking at the game we didn't play as well as we can.

"There are a number of aspects we need to improve and there will be a lot of coaching points that we can take out of that game and things we need to focus on during the week.

"The overriding thing to come out of the game is that we're putting ourselves under unnecessary pressure, whether that's giving away penalties or not looking after the ball well enough.

"It was a good learning game for us and we've got through the last two weeks against good opposition with two wins, bringing players back both weeks and giving everybody game time ahead of the European Rugby Champions Cup.

"We have to be at our best, or close to our best, in the six games of the European Champions Cup or we won’t get out of our pool, that is the reality any team in the Champions Cup faces

“We have had a couple of good wins now but we have a number of things to work on. We know that we will have to raise our game substantially next week to be in a position to win."

Cardiff were unable to capitalise on Warriors errors as the Scotstoun side racked up a 30-35 win.

“We did really well to build a lot of phases near their try line, we put them under a lot of pressure and came away with the results most times were were down there,” pointed out scrum-half Grayson Hart.

“When we got past six or seven phases we seemed to get results, so that is something we need to keep building on. Definitely a lot of positives.

“The outcome was outstanding, it is great to win away from home and the bonus point is hugely beneficial for us in the Guinness PRO12, so we can take a lot from that, but also we really, really need to look at our performance and our discipline. We let in a couple of tries and to keep winning games we are going to have to fix those things.”