“In the first half they were by far the better side with a lot more urgency and enthusiasm. They won all the 50-50 balls during that period and they caused us problems.

“We dropped off a lot of tackles, in fact I've never seen us miss anywhere near as many tackles as that in a game. That meant they got in behind us at will, but then in the second half it was a different story and I was actually pleased with the account we gave of ourselves.

“We had opportunities to score in that half, two of which we took, and overall I was pleased with the physical workout that the boys got.”

With the pre-season encounters intended to iron out any of the creases in his side's game, Fletcher added: “I'm unhappy with the result, clearly that would be the case after any defeat, but two tries all after such a sloppy first half performance wasn't such a bad total in the end.

“I thought Glasgow deserved to win ultimately as they were the dominant team, but it was a useful part of our pre-season training.”

Focusing on the plus points, he added: “I thought we scrummaged really well all game, we handled the mauls well in defence and at times in attack plus we saw some good individual performances from the likes of Geoff Parling, Andy Buist, Phil Dowson and Ben Woods.

“But we have to get the balance right in our inside backs because our game management in that area was poor, and despite a few good moments we were a little bit sideways too much in the midfield. That's how Glasgow defend, they give you the outside, but we need  to be a bit smarter about how we play against that defensive alignment in future.”

Looking to the bigger picture of Sale Sharks in the Guinness Premiership opener on September 16, Fletcher said: “It's a pre-season game, it's just part of our training and we have to keep it in perspective.

“We used the game to look at certain parts of our play, and in a sense may have compromised the result a little by focusing so hard on those areas when there was space elsewhere. For example there were gaps in behind their midfield all night, but I wanted to look at us playing a certain way and so we didn't perhaps exploit those spaces as much as we would have normally done.

“Having said that, the players are massively disappointed and rightly so.”