In among all the ‘modern coach’ post-match positivity emanating from Dave Rennie and Richard Cockerill at Scotstoun on Saturday, which stood in stark contrast to the feeling of most who had witnessed another ugly Scottish derby encounter, there was just one moment when a guard slipped.

Asked what could be done about the mistakes that continue to blight the play of his side which tops the Pro14’s scoring charts because of the way it’s high risk approach allows them to pick off inferior opponents but also turn the ball over more than any other team in the league, Rennie was briefly blunt in replying: “Selection… that’s the way to solve it obviously.”

Conspiracy theorists who reckoned Rennie’s to field Peter Horne at stand off in the first of these festive encounters was down to Finn Russell’s decision to leave the club might consider that message in the context of Glasgow’s performances immediately prior to Horne being asked to pull on the No.10 jersey for the second of their meetings with Montpellier. Clearly there was a n element of looking to the longer term in leaving Scotland’s play-maker out of the starting line-up for a couple of weeks, but there was also annoyance at how the team played against Cardiff Blues and in the home defeat against the French side. On Saturday, however, with Russell re-installed at stand off, Glasgow showed some evidence of being prepared to get a job done against opponents whose less ambitious approach had brought them five wins in the teams’ six previous encounters.

A win apiece in the derbies so far, then and the coaches of the Scottish teams could revert to the familiar tactic of publicly supporting players’ while using external criticism as both an opportunity to point out failings and to generate within them the sort of siege mentality that Richard Cockerill, Edinburgh’s boss, looked to whip up when claiming his side had received little or no credit after winning the previous week. Let us, then, proffer the gift they yearn by acknowledging that this was dreadful fare.

Perhaps the supporter who apparently took to social media during the second half to claim ‘I’m not saying this game is poor but I’m wishing another fire alarm would go off,’ could be accused of inappropriate flippancy, but you could understand what prompted the sentiment, the first half having been curtailed by two minutes after what was reported to have been a false alarm, putting the Scottish Fire and Rescue briefly in charge of proceedings. In the eyes of Cockerill they apparently did a better job of their decision making than the match officials, accusing Mike Adamson of refereeing the teams differently, most obviously related to his assessment of attempts at breakdown steals by Scotland flanker Hamish Watson and his international colleague Zander Fagerson who, tellingly, claimed the man-of-the-match award from tighthead prop. Offences by Watsonproduced three of the four penalties that let Russell put the home side in an unassailable position heading into the last few minutes of the ill-disciplined, error-strewn encounter.

It would be marginally inaccurate to claim that it took more than the regulation 80 minutes to produce the solitary try since, for all that it came a minute and 25 seconds into injury time, we had lost those two first half minutes. Even so, it was only registered because Edinburgh, who with seven international front-row forwards currently unavailable had inevitably struggled in the scrums all day, had gifted their opponents an opportunity when trying and failing to run the ball from their own line in pursuing a bonus point as the clock wound down. The consequent five metre scrum let George Horne put Lee Jones in for the try that distorted the scoreline. No way were Glasgow the superior side by 17 points.

So, to what promises to be a tricky few weeks in those selection matters for the two coaches.

For Edinburgh a real opportunity for silverware has presented itself in the European Challenge Cup since they can knock out the holders as well as securing progress in their meetings with Stade Francais, but Cockerill has made it clear that it is a tournament he is not keen to be involved in next season, making this weekend’s encounter with South Africa’s hapless Southern Kings, more important as they seek to close the gap to the top three in their Pro14 Conference.

Rennie seemed of a similar mind since, while he cannot afford to throw lambs to slaughter in what are now, for Glasgow, dead European rubbers against Leinster and Exeter Chiefs, his priority has to be the Pro14.

“The most important game of those three is Zebre next week,” he said of their forthcoming schedule. “We’re also conscious that we’ve got to keep in mind Scottish commitments, so some of these boys like Finn will need a rest either this week or the following week. Certainly, in Europe we can start to give a couple of young guys a crack, but you still want to have a reasonable team around them otherwise you don’t actually learn about them under a bit of heat.”