Anyone hoping to find a sense of outrage among the victims of Maro Itoji’s goading behaviour during Saracens’ defeat of Glasgow Warriors in the Heineken Cup on Sunday was never likely to have much joy when raising the subject with the Scottish team’s co-captain Ryan Wilson.

The England flanker had mockingly joined in the celebrations once he realised, before his opponents, that the try they believed they had scored just before the interval had not been allowed, but English-born and raised Wilson knows that those who live by the sword must die by it.

“It is what it is. If you know me as a player I’m not one to not wind people up, so I don’t suppose I can comment too much on that. Not much of it was due to me at the weekend. I tried to stay away from it as you saw,” he said grinning broadly.

Aye, right Ryan, that will be the day, the truth being closer to the commentary observation to which he pretended to take office, that he is capable of starting a fight with himself and a more accurate representation was provided by his observation that: “I like a game that’s got a bit of edge to it and that certainly had it. It was a brutal encounter but I enjoyed it.”

Which is not to suggest that he was anything other than party to the deep sense of frustration that imbued the squad after the match. They may have gone toe-to-toe with the English champions in an encounter which generated a solitary, decisive try as well as umpteen broken bones for the visitors, but they had expected to do so and to take much more from the game.

“A lot of people were speaking about it as a surprise, but it was no surprise to us,” Wilson said of Glasgow’s physicality.

“We went out there expecting to beat them and expecting to win. That’s what we look to do at home and we didn’t do that, so we weren’t good enough on the day, but, you know, the effort was there, there was plenty heart put out there on the pitch, but as we we said in the changing room afterwards it’s not acceptable to lose at home.”

As one of those charged with calling the on-field shots, Wilson has not, however, changed his mind about the decisions to repeatedly opt to kick to touch when awarded penalties in first-half injury time, in favour of attempting to kick for goal.

“No. I think at the end of that first half we got three penalties in a row and during that there was another infringement and we got penalty advantage, so at some point you’re looking for the ref to maybe go to the pocket which we were sort of expecting, but he didn’t,” he explained.

“On another day, they could have got a yellow card. We then go for the corner again, or maybe take a scrum - because it would probably have been Maro Itoji (who was sin-binned) - and then we go for a pushover scrum and get those points just before half-time.

“So, we can look back at it and we spoke about it as leaders. Later on in the game we could have maybe gone for the posts. About 72 minutes we had a chance to take those points and look for a bonus point, but we went out there to win the game. Hopefully we don’t look back on it at the end, that point, but we’re here to win the game and that’s what we’re going for.”

As one of those who was among the automatic choices in the international squad that was named yesterday for the forthcoming autumn Tests, Wilson knows there has to be much more of the same over the month and a bit ahead with the visits of Fiji, South Africa and Argentina to Murrayfield preceded by a trip to Cardiff and a bid to gain revenge for the Six Nations defeat by Wales when the nations contest the inaugural Doddie Weir Cup. However the first priority is this weekend’s visit to the Welsh capital for a match Glasgow must now win if they are to have any chance of progressing to the knockout stages in the Champions Cup this season.

While Wilson would never say so, the reality was that Saracens were always extremely likely to win the pool and that the question was whether one of their rivals could claim one of the three best runners-up spots that could take them into the quarter-finals and a win in Cardiff, who defeated French side Lyon at the weekend, would tilt things back in Glasgow’s favour.

“Everything could change, couldn’t it and there’s so much chat around it, but realistically if we go and win and a few results don’t go Saracens way, everything changes up in the pool,” said Wilson. “We’ve spoken about it and said ‘look, we’re not out of this competition,’ so it shouldn’t make too much of a difference come the business end.”