As a result the Warriors slipped to third place and Townsend is determined to see improvements from his side against fourth-place Ospreys on Friday.
"We were well below our best," he told www.glasgowwarriors.org. "We were playing against a team that kept up their performance for 80 minutes but we started poorly and weren't able to snap out of it during the game.
"I've not seen any of those characteristics from the players that they showed here. We've got a group than normally fight for everything but they didn't do it enough. It was our worst performance of the season and we'll need to pick ourselves up for the game next week against the Ospreys.
"It was a huge game for us and we got a sharp reminder that if you drop your standards you can get badly beaten.
"We're all professional so we know that 80 minutes at the weekend is very important. No matter how you prepare and what you say it's what you do in that 80 minutes that defines you as a professional rugby player."
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