The Leinster and Ireland forward was a key member of last season’s double winning squad, and one of 11 players making their first appearance of the season in the 23-21 defeat in Llanelli on Saturday.

He admits ‘rustiness’ might have been a factor in the defending PRO14 champions’ defeat, but says that it is not an excuse they are going to use.

To be honest with you, that’s probably the mindset of a smaller club,” he said.

“That’s not a good enough excuse here, to say, ‘ah, I haven’t played in a few months. I was this. I was that.’ “We walked off the pitch after losing and it felt like we had gone back a few years to where we were losing semi-finals.

“It didn’t feel like the first game of the year. It felt as important as any other game.

“It was a massive loss and the lads were hugely disheartened, considering the position we were in at half-time.

Yeah, lads were rusty and it showed. But, that is no excuse for us. We have to be better.” Leinster have not won away to Scarlets since 2013, so victory was never going to be easy – but the province were 14-10 ahead at half time and failed to impose themselves after the break, coughing up penalties and points.

“To go from 14-10 up to 23-14 down at one stage is massively disappointing,” Conan said. “I don’t think we were ruthless enough. We didn’t have that killer instinct in us.

“We knew we were in the ascendency, we were in a good position, we had our foot on the throat.

“We knew that was the time to strike, put them to sword. But we took our foot off the pedal, we let them get back into the game.” Discipline was a recurring word in Leinster’s Monday morning post-match briefing. By full time they had conceded 13 penalties, in contrast to Scarlets’ 7.

“That was the biggest let down of the game, it killed us,” Conan said.

“Defensively, we weren’t where we needed to be at times but we just can’t look past the discipline.

You can’t give them the opportunity to have 15 men against 14 camped in our 22.

“Any half-decent side are going to punish you there and they eventually did. I don’t think we worked hard enough early to shut them down.” Monday morning after a defeat is “not a comfortable place”, Conan says, but that’s precisely what’s required to retain the two titles picked up last season.

“We were pretty harsh on ourselves. We have to be. We want standards to be high and to drive people and to be better than we were.

“We’re critical of each other and what we did wrong and we’re trying to be tough to be kind.” Saturday’s game was Conan’s 75th appearance for the province at the start of what could be a career defining season.

With Jamie Heaslip retired and Jordi Murphy, who started at No 8 in the Champions Cup final last May, now departed to Ulster, this year offers Conan the opportunity to make his claim for that shirt with club and country.

But he’s not alone, and the addition of Caelan Doris, the Ireland U20 captain, to the roster, as well as the impressive Max Deegan, ensures plenty of competition for places. “I’m looking forward to fighting it out with them,” Conan said.

“I think the second you take for granted where you are is the moment you’re going to be overtaken by someone else.”