“That was a huge compliment to their heart and the belief that they have in the programme there, and the coaches. They obviously believe in what Sean Everitt is trying to do there, so I think they can be proud of the way they stopped us,” he added, in support of his under-press fellow South African.

“We had 18 entries into the 22, and it was arguably our lowest conversion rate. I thought Edinburgh stopped us, then they held us up over the line and they also scored the maul try, which we don’t often allow.

“They slowed our breakdowns down, and I thought we made a lot of contact between the two 15s, which is uncommon. But these guys came with their hearts on their sleeves. If I compare it with their approach last year, it’s night and day. We still have the same result, five points, but we had to work way harder for it this time.

‘”So, I want to compliment them, and I know they’re going to be tough next week over there [at Murrayfield]. From our side, we’ll have to step up again.

“Fortunately we have Monday and Tuesday [training sessions]. Last year we didn’t have the two days, this year we have two days to go and review a little bit, and because you play the same team twice in a week, you can look at what can work and what needs to be changed.”

While Smith – who was showcasing snazzy Glasgow Warriors tartan trousers – was feeling seasonally generous in his praise of Edinburgh, he was also full of Christmas cheer as he assessed his own team’s performance, and gave his verdict on the match as a spectacle.

“I think if you knock on the door long enough, somewhere it needs to open,” he reasoned. “So therefore, from our perspective, I’m proud that the boys stuck to task. They didn’t get discouraged by the good effort and defence from Edinburgh. We know next week will be more of the same, so it will keep us working hard and getting better at what we need.

“Continuity is an important factor, but we’ll see how the boys present from an injury perspective,” he added.  “I’ve got a player management plan in place, and we’ll see how that will be affected by the injury list. Currently it looks quite sound, there’s nobody really injured, so we’ll have a look and see who’s available next week and how it will pan out.

“It was a spectacle anyway,” he said of the game. “You can’t guarantee tries. These people come to football games and see maybe two goals. That’s the way it goes, we wanted to win, we wanted to grind it out. It’s like Test cricket and 20/20 cricket, there’s a completely different story.

“It’s a derby, [so] there’s more to playing this game than there is to us playing any other team. There’s a little bit of trials in front of Scottish coaches, it’s an arm-wrestle that’s different, and it influences decision-making: ‘Do I pass the ball, do I keep it, do I kick it?’ There’s a lot of things that influence the game, and I think that’s one area where Scottish players can improve: not being fazed by the grandeur of the games and the occasions. Just focus on playing the game, and don’t get fazed by anything else.

“For me it felt like a much better event [than last season’s 1872 Cup match at Hampden]. We’ll hear the feedback I’m sure, but we don’t play in front of a Glasgow support of that magnitude very often, and the comments in the changing room were so positive. People were saying they wish we could play here every week, not from a field perspective, but with the atmosphere.

“We are really proud of the Scotstoun atmosphere, so if we can get more people into Scotstoun…  in the end the people who make the atmosphere. I would love to return here in the spring.”

Meanwhile, Everitt was also focussed on the positives of his team’s performance, although he conceded that the capital side will have to find a way of generating more front-foot ball ahead of next Saturday’s rematch at Murrayfield.

“I thought we defended really well,” he said. “There was a lot of fight in our defence, keeping them out in the first half. We only got into their 22 once and managed to score a try. We started the second half better, had opportunities in the 22, but weren’t accurate enough there.

“Credit to Glasgow on how they defended us as well in the 22, so that’s an area that we need to improve on for next week. But if I look at the defensive effort and the physicality, I thought we were right up there with the fight that the guys showed. But you can’t win a game on that alone. You have to fire some shots from an attack point of view and it didn’t work out for us.

“Some of our set-piece was disrupted as well. And then obviously Glasgow managed to slow our ball down on attack, so we’ve got a bit of work to do on our breakdown and our accuracy in our execution in our attack.

“I think we’ve got to look at how we exited as well. We had three exits in the first half where we lost the ball on the first carry. That’s never going to be good enough to get out of your half because you’re giving them a set-piece. An exam was when we scored then, unfortunately, we got ball-ripped on the carry on the kick-off, and then that led to another try. So, yeah, disappointed about that, but it’s things that we can fix.”

While it didn’t ever really look like Edinburgh could win the game, their second half rally did get them back to within seven points, which would have meant a valuable URC bonus-point and a much easier deficit to turn around in next weekend’s second-leg of the 1872 Cup. However, they then conceded a fourth try which left them with no league points from the match while Glasgow ended up with a bonus-point and a 12-point start next week.

“12 points in a derby game is a big deficit to catch up,” Everitt conceded. “We’re positive that if we can put up the same fight and the same physicality next week and be more accurate with ball in hand, that we’ve got an opportunity to do that. It’s a pity about the last try that we conceded, I think seven points would have been a hell of a lot easier for us going into next week’s game. But we haven’t lost faith.

“It’s another rugby game that has to be played. We’ve shown in the past that we can win, but we haven’t won with big enough margins.

“Our goal is still to win the 1872 Cup. We do need to get our set-piece strikes probably better so we can get our forwards on the front foot. But, yes, we want to make up that deficit next week.

“We’ll review the game and see where we get better from an attack point of view. I know we weren’t good on attack. And it’s for us as coaches to have a look and see where we can improve.”

Edinburgh lost Duhan van der Merwe to a hip injury as well as Ewan Ashman and Piers O’Conor to head injuries during the second half of the match, and although Everitt had not had a medical update when he spoke to the press, he acknowledged that all three are now doubts for next week.

The absence of O’Conor in particular would be a headache given that fellow-centres Mosese Tuipulotu, Findlay Thomsson, James Lang and Charlie McCaig are also out of action at the moment.