Paul O'Connell's glittering Munster career came to an end in sorry defeat at Ravenhill tonight as Glasgow Warriors put on a show to win the Guinness Pro12 final in storming fashion.

Ireland captain O'Connell, who has still not confirmed whether he will retire after the World Cup in October or sign a lucrative deal with Toulon, put in a towering performance to no avail for his native province as Glasgow ruled the roost for much of the 80 minutes on raucous but chilly Belfast evening.

The Warriors outscored Munster by four tries to one, the damage done in a blistering opening 30 minutes that for which the Irish province had no answer.

Missing captain Peter O'Mahony and play-making scrum-half Conor Murray to injury, Munster had looked to be missing two important weapons in their armoury and Glasgow quickly set about about proving the theory.

Munster, quite simply, were terrible for the first half hour as the Warriors ran in three converted tries as the Irish province floundered in defence and attack.

They were undone chiefly by awful tactical kicking, their boots repeatedly finding Glasgow's classy and dangerous strike runners and being made to pay for their persistent poor judgement that had Munster's large travelling support trying to rally their heroes as early as the 13th minute.

By then Munster were already 7-0 down, Ian Keatley having missed an early long-range penalty from close to the right touchline in the sixth minute.

Two minutes later Glasgow were in front, winning a scrum off an Munster lineout gone awry with lock Leone Nakawara bulldozing through the Irish defensive backs before offloading to flanker Rob Harley to run under the posts.

Keatley got Munster up and running with a penalty on 24 minutes but having failed to find touch in his effort to exit from the restart, Glasgow ran the ball straight back with clinical ruthlessness, wing DTH van der Merwe down the left flank and around towards the posts, Finn Russell adding his second conversion.

Worse was to come as Munster were next ripped apart down the right, again from a Glasgow scrum, Stuart Hogg twisting Felix Jones inside out on his 10-metre line, then drawing last man Simon Zebo before passing inside to Henry Pyrgos for an unopposed run over the line from 22 metres.

At 21-3 with nine minutes to go before half-time, Munster looked all at sea but they finally rallied and with a penalty advantage from Nigel Owens, Keatley flung a wide pass out to the left, Andrew Smith working hard to break the line and touch down.

Munster were alive, Keatley converting to leave them 21-10 at the break.

Still with plenty of work to do, Munster started strongly after the interval as they continued in search of atonement and O'Connell nearly gave them a dream start to the second half as he drove over the line in the 46th minute, but was held up.

There was a reward, though, a five-metre scrum producing a penalty which Keatley dispatched to close the gap to eight points.

Yet Glasgow were scoring their points in sevens and a sustained period of pressure at the other end saw Pyrgos and Russell work their pack along the five-metre line before fly-half Russell spotted a gap and ran over for a fourth try of the night.

It was no less than the Scotland playmaker deserved and he converted his own try to push the Warriors into a 28-13 lead with 20 minutes to go.

Munster kept battling, but endeavour and determination were nowhere near enough.

Glasgow saw out the closing period with little trouble as O'Connell's career in red was brought to a desperately disappointing end.

MUNSTER: F Jones; K Earls, A Smith, D Hurley – captain, S Zebo (R O'Mahony, 56); I Keatley (JJ Hanrahan, 56), D Williams (C Sheridan, 72); D Kilcoyne (J Cronin, 63), E Guinazu (D Casey, 63), BJ Botha (S Archer, 60); B Holland (J O'Donoghue, 60), P O'Connell; D Ryan, P Butler (S Dougall, 10-19, 72), CJ Stander.

GLASGOW: S Hogg (S Lamont, 62); T Seymour, R Vernon, P Horne, DTH van der Merwe (N Matawalu, 71); F Russell (D Weir, 67), H Pyrgos; G Reid (J Yanuyanutawa, 78), D Hall, R de Klerk (J Welsh, 53); L Nakarawa (A Kellock, 67), J Gray; R Harley (C Fusaro, 60), R Wilson, J Strauss - captain.

Replacement not used: F Brown

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)