GLASGOW Warriors opened up a 12-point lead in their Guinness PRO14 conference with a seven-try win as a South African franchise made their way to Scotstoun for the first time. It continues their perfect start to the tournament, with second-placed Munster's loss at Connacht an added bonus.

The Scots eventually found their rhythm but it took a long time, as Dave Rennie, the head coach, admitted later. "I was not happy at half time, mainly because we talked about going through the middle of them, being really direct into the wind and looking after the ball into the wind, and we did not do enough of that.

"We were a bit loose and gave the ball back to them too often, and started the second half in a similar way but eventually got into the right part of the ground and the big men did some good work around our line out drive. We were patient, picked through the middle.

That reflected the message they had been giving the players all week.They needed to hang onto the ball if they were going to win matches. If they could go through the phases to create space, the have the firepower to exploit it; if they keep handing possession to the opposition they may get away with it sometimes, but never against the best teams.

Most of first half was an object lesson in that. Poor handling, ridiculous attempts at offloads and misdirected kicks all contributed to a squandering of possession that did augur well for next week's revenge mission against Leinster, as Rennie admitted.

When they did get it right, the proved the coaches right. When the team did build more than two or three phases and they were finding huge gaps against a South African side that have yet to gel into a unit.

Not that Glasgow could have hoped for a better start; the game only a minute old when Adam Hastings, on his first start at fly half, found Sam Johnson on the outside to jink past four tackles before offloading to Stuart Hogg for the try.

Though Hastings miscued the conversion into the wind, it was an early demonstration of their attacking threat, though they were quickly given a demonstration that it was not going to be all one-way traffic when Andisa Ntsila, the Kings' flanker, went over only for the try to be disallowed for a block in the build-up.

The Kings did cut the deficit with a penalty not long afterwards and took the lead with a second but that only woke the misfiring Scots with Nick Grigg, who has just signed a two year extension to his contract, at the heart of it.

It was his break wide out that put the Scots on the Kings' line so that two rucks later Niko Matawalu could leap over the top for the second try and it was also Grigg who finished the final score of the half after a huge Hastings break from his own half had set up the position.

Not that it was by any means perfect. A quick tap penalty saw George Horne racing clear but his pass to Matawalu in support missed the man and after the break Hastings again cut through but his attempt at a backhanded offload missed everybody.

There was only one pass involved as Glasgow took the bonus point with Zander Fagerson, the prop, on a peel round the front of the line out with too much power for the lone defender – nor was there much the South Africans could do when Glasgow took a line out maul over the line for Matt Smith, the flanker, to ground the ball.

By now the tries were coming more easily with George Horne celebrating his first start with the sixth, before an interception handed the Kings the consolation of at least managing one touchdown. There was one final try for Glasgow, George Turner, the hooker, at the back of another maul.

A satisfactory enough result for Glasgow but, as Rennie said, there is still plenty to work on. "There were some good things we did, it was great that we got some young men out on the park and they will learn a lot, but we will have to lift to another gear next week [when they face Leinster]," added Rennie.

"We have to keep chipping away. Leinster is a big game – we will find out a little later who is being released from the 19 in the Scotland squad. It is good, the young men who played will be better for it next week."