LOSING the 1872 Cup to Edinburgh need not be a disaster, it might even be a good omen, said Glasgow Warriors co-captain Ryan Wilson.

That was after seeing his side suffer their first regular-season home defeat in the Guinness PRO14 since Dave Rennie arrived as head coach.

"Someone mentioned that we lost this 1872 Cup the year won the league," he pointed out – correctly, though only on aggregate score after both teams won their home legs. "It’s a long old season, you’ve just got to keep plugging away at it. This is probably the best Edinburgh side we’ve come up against over the years."

For all that, he admitted conceding the festive double to Edinburgh does heap the pressure on the side as they prepare to travel to Italy to face Benetton Treviso, who won both their derby matches against Zebre, and are two places, though only one point, above Edinburgh in Conference B of the PRO14.

"Treviso are a massive test, especially over there because they’re taking some scalps," Wilson said. "They’ll be looking at us thinking they can get some points, so we need to turn it around quickly and go over there with a positive mindset of beating them.

"It takes one game, just one game. If we go to Treviso and play well then this can all be forgotten about pretty quickly."

Whether Wilson himself will be involved in the match won't be revealed until nearer the time – it is definitely not a certainty since few things illustrate the different approaches taken by the two clubs better than the amount of rotation that goes on. Glasgow rotate routinely; Edinburgh try not to.

Take, for example, the contrast in the way he was treated as Glasgow captain compared with Stuart McInally, the Edinburgh skipper. While Wilson played in only two of the big four games – against Lyon in the Heineken Champions Cup and Edinburgh in the league – McInally was expected to pitch up and perform every week.

Not only that, but despite playing in the front row, where most teams replace their players after about an hour, McInally played almost to the end of every game, clocking up 283 minutes of action to bring his season's total to 920 in 15 games for Scotland and his club.

Contrast that with Wilson, who shares the Glasgow captaincy with Callum Gibbins. He has played in 12 international and club games, clocking up 779 minutes. He played only 133 minutes in the four big December games, less than half the time put in by McInally.

That should mean he is fresher and carrying fewer knocks into each match, but the downside is that it also makes it harder for the units within the team to gel. Add in that they were fielding an inexperienced hooker in Grant Stewart and some of the set-piece issues are easier to explain – though also easier to fix the more they play together.

Wilson did admit he was just as much in the dark about the scrum problems as the rest of world outside the two front rows, but he did accept the line-out had also been an issue.

"There were a few things, but it can’t all go down to the thrower, it could be something to do with the lift or the jumps," he pointed out. "We’ve got to get our arms around Grant Stewart and see where we go from there. In these games they thrive off their set-piece and we’ve got to be better there so we’ll look at that and fix it.

"We keep speaking about how we respect each other and how we respect the jersey and that’s why we perform at our highest ability. Against Edinburgh, the effort was there but a few things didn’t go our way and the set-piece killed us."