Toulon had reached their second quarter-final in only their second season of Heineken Cup rugby before this game, but will have to wait to see if they get the all-important home draw after failing to get a losing bonus point.

Montpellier were without their injured skipper Fulgence Ouedraogo, and produced a performance full of emotion following the death of their forwards coach, Eric Bechu, on Tuesday.

Toulon, the current Top 14 leaders, had the luxury of leaving international stars Gethin Jenkins, Carl Hayman, Mathieu Bastareaud, Juan-Martin Fernandez Lobbe and Joe van Niekerk on their bench.

But Jonny Wilkinson and his Toulon side surrendered their unbeaten Pool record to their French rivals to leave ASM Clermont Auvergne and Harlequins as the only unbeaten sides in the tournament.

Centre Thomas Combezou crossed for the game's first try when a superb flat-pass by fly-half Francois Trinh-duc left Toulon's defence flat-footed to make it 7-3 to Montpellier.

Scrum-half Benoit Paillaugue stretched the home side's lead with three penalties before Toulon's full-back Delon Armitage was sin-binned for a dangerous tackle just before the break.

Toulon were down to 14-men when they went in 16-3 behind at half-time and things went from bad to worse when scrum-half Paillaugue scored his side's second try at the start of the first-half to secure the win for Montpellier.