Bristol 25 Montpellier 14: Richard Hill went on holiday a worried man after counting the cost of Bristol's first back-to-back victories for 10 months.

Wales second row Robert Sidoli – who had been the club's in-form lock – is unlikely to play again this season after fracturing his skull following a clash of heads with team-mate Shaun Perry.

Flanker Alfie To'oala has dislocated and fractured a finger and will also miss Bristol's crunch Guinness Premiership survival match with Newcastle at the Memorial Stadium a fortnight on Friday.

Hill also saw full-back Luke Arscott hobble off in a miserable first half, with a recurrence of a hamstring problem.

And, if losing three players to injury in the first half wasn't bad enough, the Bristol head coach also had to contend with an abject second-half performance.

The second 40 minutes of this European Challenge Cup final group match heralded only an interception try for Redford Pennycook and two Ed Barnes penalties.

"The second half turned into a bit of a shambles – it was a poor second half," reflected the Bristol boss.

"There wasn't much rugby played, we had some poor kicking out of hand, and were unable to keep the ball – we couldn't hold on for more than two phases at a time.

"It is down to basic individual skill to be able to kick effectively and to be able to hold onto the ball in contact.

"They have to get away for 10 days now; just clear their heads and come back because at the moment it needs a lot of work. I'm taking a week off too. This has been a long old season."

Bristol were off to a good start when wing David Lemi spotted a gap in the Montpellier defensive line and coasted through before bouncing off a woeful tackle by Jaques Boussage to score. Barnes converted.

They lost Sidoli after he clashed heads with Perry on 12 minutes when trying to tackle Oliver Sarramea.

It didn't seem a serious setback, as Roy Winters, Matt Salter and Dan Ward-Smith, backed up by good running from Neil and Nathan Brew, made the Frenchmen work hard. They added a second try on 25 minutes, a quickly-taken line-out caught Montpellier napping and Nathan Brew burst forward, offloaded to Luke Arscott and after he was pulled down, Perry darted over from the resulting ruck. Barnes converted.

Bristol had a third try disallowed when wing Lee Robinson barged Thierry Brana out of the way without the ball before going over.

Fly-half Francois Trinh-Duc had a first half to forget, firstly kicking the ball over the dead-ball line to deny Montpellier any decent field possession.

And the narrow try area did him no favours on 39 minutes when he stepped over the dead-ball line before putting the ball down after going through David Blaney and Lemi.

On the stroke of half-time, Bristol lost Luke Arscott and To'oala.

But Bristol would have been heartened by replacement flanker Pennycook intercepting and sprinting home from 45 metres out.

The home side were 19-0 ahead and looked on the verge to shake off their lethargic opening 10 minutes to the second half.

But the problems started to mount, as did the groans from a small crowd.

Bristol made many handling errors, became isolated in tackles and conceded a lot of penalties and kicked the ball directly into touch at an alarming rate, with Barnes the worst culprit.

And, following one of the many mistakes, skipper Matt Salter's frustrations boiled over when he shouted for his team "to keep the ball for four phases".

Monpellier hit back with two deserved tries from Trinh-Duc and flanker Jerome Vallee, with Trinh-Duc adding the extras.

Bristol's only other points came from two Barnes penalties, skipper Salter making sure the home side claimed victory.

"As soon as we got over halfway, we said 'keep the ball for four phases at least'. I don't think we did that in the second half," added Hill.

"Salts wanted to win the game (when deciding to kick the penalties). There would have been nothing worse had Montpellier come back, scored two more tries and we would have lost. That would have put a bigger dampener on things. Barnes is on fire. He's only missed one kick in two games."