Glasgow Warriors co-captain Ryan Wilson believes the experience of the team’s reaction to its previous defeat to Leinster in a major final can provide the inspiration that can see them go one better next season.

Speaking after Saturday’s 18-15 loss to the four time European and now six time Celtic League, Pro12 and Pro14 champions, the 30-year-old, who came off the bench during the second half at Celtic Park, admitted that their defeat had been a particular blow since this had been their first chance to win a title in front of a home support.

However, looking back to their much more comprehensive defeat to the Dublin-based province in 2014 and to the third of this season’s Champions Cup defeats to eventual winners Saracens, he reckoned that the pain of those experiences can be what is needed to make players did deeper.

"It takes these disappointments to keep you going and spur you on,” he claimed.

“Even when you look six weeks ago at Saracens, the disappointment of that, the way we performed there were a lot of things wrong in that game.

“It probably gave us a kick up the arse and we've played really well since then. It's a tough one to take, a whole other year to wait to get to one of these finals and they’re not going to be in Glasgow again for a while. It would have been special to send our fans off home from Parkhead with a win, but we didn't get it."

That perhaps speaks to a contrast in competitive maturity that may have contributed to the difference between the sides on Saturday since, for all that Leinster were bouncing back from a disappointment of their own in that Champions Cup final against Saracens a fortnight earlier, their players had previously needed no such setbacks to draw upon in winning all five of their previous European finals, as well as all those domestic titles.

At Glasgow since 2010, Wilson is part of a group of Scottish players who have been unable to find a way of matching their Irish counterparts in the past decade, but having been squeezed out of Glasgow’s starting line-up for these play-offs by 20-year-old Matt Fagerson, he expressed confidence in the next generation that is emerging.

"We spoke in the changing room after and said, listen, four years ago it didn't just come from us getting to a final and doing it. We had to work towards that,” he said of that solitary Pro12 triumph.

“It took two or three years to realise that, winning those big games and we've got a group of young men that put their hands up this season.

“Some of the young guys who played have been outstanding and there were men who weren't out there as part of the 23 today who deserved to have been but you can't pick more than 23. That's the exciting thing, that we're going to have a squad who are going to be competing again next season again."

Perversely, the team from the host city could be seen as having been disadvantaged by the wet conditions on Saturday that worked against their eagerness to move the ball at speed, but Wilson rightly noted that a team from Glasgow could hardly place too much emphasis on that having been a problem, not least because it had seemed to bode well since there were similarities with the day they won the Pro12 in 2015.

"A couple of the boys were saying there, jeez like it sounds crazy, but we haven't played in the rain for about six or seven weeks and we're from Glasgow, which is bloody unbelievable,” he observed, wryly.

“We looked at it this morning and thought, it's raining and we came here with a smile on our face because four years ago it started raining in Belfast and we pulled through and won it, so we can't blame that. We just didn't fire enough shots."

He acknowledged, too, that Leinster had proven themselves the best team in the Pro14 as they battled on two fronts throughout the season, but there was still a sense of what might have been had they been able to perform as they had in the latter part of the regular season.

"The way we've gone all season we feel we are the ones who deserved to be lifting that trophy I suppose,” said Wilson.

“They'll look at that and think they've got to where they are because they've played well in their conference and on the day they probably played the conditions better and were the better team so it’s just a massive disappointment."