It wasn't meant to be like this, was it?
It was a long-awaited return to the top table of European rugby for Bath Rugby. But, in the end, the main course was under-cooked, the champers was distinctly flat, and the service wasn't what it could have been.
The new European Rugby Champions Cup is a creature that Bath owner Bruce Craig has laboured hard to deliver to an expectant rugby public.
How disappointing for Bath supporters and Craig, then, that their side was blown down the Clyde like a flimsy leaf on an autumnal gust.
Glasgow Warriors' European record is certainly not be the stuff of legend, but they put a stick of Scotstoun dynamite underneath Pool 4 with a display that would have seen off most teams.
Jeremy Guscott had been touting Bath as favourites for Pool 4 ahead of the opening round of fixtures. Today, Bath sit bottom of the table, with Montpellier having picked up a losing bonus point against Toulouse.
There was no hiding place for Bath after their surprise 37-10 loss. Even the round-up press release issued by the competition's organisers described Bath's defeat as "crushing".
The margin of defeat also serves as a reality check for Bath, if one were needed.
Thirty-seven is a painful number of points for a side of Bath's defensive muscle to concede. But - with the exception of the impressive nilling of Leicester - the fact of the matter is that, so far this season, Bath's defence has not been up to the standard of recent campaigns.
The club has conceded an average of 22 points a match this term - too many for a side with title-winning ambitions.
So what accounts for the Slaughter of Scotstoun?
"Throughout the entire squad we didn't want it enough," was Dave Attwood's immediate reaction – an extraordinary statement on the face of it.
Bath have laboured for years to get back into the top level of European club rugby, so for the club not to "want it enough" is an unsettling diagnosis from within.
But rushing to judgment - or the panic button - is misguided. Motivation in sport is a many-headed, curious thing. And, as Attwood himself put it, "I expect a reaction".
But how, some might say, can you react when you don't have a back row?
Injury and suspension mean that Bath remain seriously weakened in the loose forwards.
And while Tom Ellis's and Charlie Ewels' time will most certainly come, being pitched into the cauldron of the European Cup is hardly the ideal introduction to life in the first team.
To their credit, Bath haven't used their lack of loose forwards as an excuse. But trying to match the biggest teams in the continent with five back-rowers missing is akin to trying to fight a war with an entire battalion missing.
In such circumstances, Toulouse on Saturday is a tad daunting. As Attwood says, only a reaction – and a ferocious one at that – will be good enough. Otherwise, Bath's Champions Cup debut will be over before it's even properly begun.
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