"The previous couple of weeks in Europe have been good for us," suggested Dave Rennie, the Glasgow Warriors head coach, in the official team announcement. On the face of it, it's a statement that is hard to understand since they lost both games and did not even pick up a losing bonus point. He, however, is thinking long-term.

"It is a long process," he explained. "We have won our first six [Guinness PRO14] games but we still have big strides to make. A lot of it is about our patience and our ability to build pressure.

"We go through three or four phases and then put in a little kick or force a pass that isn’t on and that releases pressure. You can get away with it in some games, but against big teams like Leinster and Exeter it can hurt you.

"They were both good at forcing you to make defensive errors or bring the referee into the equation. It is something we’ve worked hard on for the past few months but we still have work to do in that area. Some good lessons have been learnt and hopefully that will show in the PRO14 over the next few weeks.

"We played a lot of good footy in the past two weeks. We got behind and fought back and we had a fair bit of momentum at 24-18 [behind against Leinster] but you have to hand it to Leinster and Exeter because they choked us down and got a result. We’ve got to be better.

"We need to be the best team in this competition in May. There’s a lot of growth in the group. You’ve got to take things on the chin and learn from them. That’s why I think the last couple of weeks have been good for us."

He is looking for signs that the young players he has thrust into the big decision-making positions have seen the problems created by trying too much too soon and will show they understand the need for patience against the Southern Kings.

"What we found out also was that if you make a couple of errors and don’t quite get it right then you’re punished, that’s where Exeter and Leinster were very good," he said. "Every team you play will be the same, it’s common to this competition regardless of where you play, teams want to get the opposition into the corner and put them under heat.

"We want to play a really high tempo game but we also want to be really accurate. That’s what hurt us [against Leinster] – we turned over too much of the pill and played at the wrong end of the pitch. "We’ve got a lot of ambitions, but we need to be prepared to go multi-phase if we’re to pull out the killer blow against top side."

He has experience of facing the Kings in Super Rugby but understands they are rebuilding. For all that, he sees the challenge they pose as similar in nature to those from Exeter and Leinster – a big pack aiming to build pressure before releasing fast backs.