Three second-half tries from Glasgow Warriors were not enough to stop Toulon making it fifth time lucky with a 43-19 victory in the EPCR Challenge Cup final at the Aviva Stadium.

After four final defeats, the French side hit Glasgow for six with three tries in each half as they eased to victory to give retiring Italian number eight Sergio Parisse a title-winning send off.

Toulon were quickly into their stride and looked confident from the off as they chased their first Challenge Cup title at the venue where they won their first Heineken Champions Cup crown in 2013.

They lost Wales fly-half Dan Biggar with a head injury after only four minutes, then saw Australian centre Duncan Paia’Aua  go off for another HIA in the 32nd minute.

They also lost influential scrum-half Baptiste Serin in the final move of the opening 40 minutes with a left knee injury that required a third change to their starting back division.

There was a fourth alteration at the start o the second half when Mathieu Bastareaud came on to replace wing Gabin Villiers, who also failed an HIA.

By then, though, Serin has sparked his side into life with two tries as they sped into a 21-0 interval lead.

Toulon quickly recovered from the loss of Biggar and two minutes later, with Ihaia West on to replace the Welshman, Serin produced a moment of magic to get the scoreboard moving.

After taking the ball from a ruck on the Glasgow 22 he dabbed the ball through the defensive line, regathered and just managed to touch down despite the efforts of Ollie Smith to turn him on his back over the line.

The scrum half added the extras and then picked out 39-year-old Italian legend Sergio Parisse for a try at the posts after more pressure from the Top 14 outfit after Glasgow had lost a line-out.

Serin added the extras and then picked up the third try after 25 minutes. Glasgow lost another line out on their 10-metre line and Toulon skipper Charles Ollivon drove on.

Fijian centre Waisea Vuidravuwalu carried on strongly and when he was brought down on the line, Serin picked up and dotted down before adding a third conversion.

Glasgow started the second half encouragingly, but their inability to turn pressure into points cost them dearly. It was not until their 11th incursion into the Toulon 22 that they managed to break their duck and that came via a try from skipper Kyle Steyn in the 55th minute from a neat moved down the blindside of a line-out.

Before then replacement scrum-half Benoit Paillaugue had added a penalty to extend the lead to 24 points. George Horne’s angled conversion of Steyn’s score gave Glasgow hope, but two more tries slammed the door shut as far as a comeback was concerned.

The Fijian duo of Jiuta Wainiqolo and Vuidravuwalu scored them and Paillaugue converted the latter to make it 36-7 with 16 minutes to go.

Glasgow earned some respectability with later tries from Sebastian Cancelliere and Steyn, but it was never going to be enough.

West scampered over for the final try with two minutes to go and Paillaugue kicked another conversion to complete the scoring.

Jack Dempsey has hailed head coach Franco Smith’s impact on Glasgow after the Warriors reached their first European final.

With the season well and truly at its business-end, Glasgow are also chasing United Rugby Championship honours and face a play-off clash against Munster at Scotstoun next Saturday.

And their trophy double bid underlines the effect South African Smith has had during his first season in charge.

“Since day one when Franco came in, there has been something kind of growing,” Glasgow and Scotland back-row forward Dempsey said.

“And whether you are an amateur player or a professional player or whatever it is, that is something which hits you.

“Franco has got plaudits for various things, but the biggest thing was building that depth so that there were opportunities for guys like Matt Fagerson and myself to be managed correctly.

“There are no real excuses. We are just rolling now and picking ourselves up week to week.

“Franco is smart around the training loads as well, and he knows that going into these big games that we are not going to get heaps fitter at this stage of the season by working really hard.

“It is too late for that. At the end of the season, you are either fit or you’re not, so he is managing us well.”

Glasgow have emulated Edinburgh eight years ago in booking a Challenge Cup final place – the Warriors will head to Dublin on May 19 – but they were pushed all the way by the Scarlets in Llanelli.

The home side, roared on by a 13,000 crowd – their biggest home attendance since they knocked La Rochelle out of the Champions Cup in 2018 – led 14-7 at half-time.

Bur Glasgow dug deep, scoring 28 points after the break and claiming a 35-17 victory as centre Stafford McDowall scored two tries, while scrum-half George Horne, flanker Rory Darge and replacement hooker Johnny Matthews also touched down.

Dempsey added: “There have been ups and downs, but this is something I think we deserve because of the way everyone has worked for each other.

“To get that result, in a pretty hostile environment, it just adds another layer to the story.

“That’s what the whole point is of getting experience on big stages – you never know what is going to be thrown at you – and I think the second half showed what we are made of.

“We could easily have folded, gone into our shell and blamed it on a learning experience and had a look to next year, but we dug deep and went back to what makes us a great team, and we pulled it out in the end.

“We have been comfortable the last three or four weeks when we’ve had all home games, so the curve ball this week was the hostile environment when you can’t hear your own lineout calls, for example, and it makes it challenging in other ways.

“You take confidence in the fact that you haven’t lost in a while, but I think the game was a bit of a shock to the system and a wake-up call for the boys to see that in big moments this is what it takes.

“We saw that it can slip through your fingers when we went 14-7 down, and there is a price to pay if you are not switched on.”