Warriors had secured a try bonus before half-time and extended their lead early in the second period but were unable to kick on to the big win that looked to be on the cards.
Carolan told Planet Rugby: "It was the good, the bad and the ugly on Saturday. For 50 minutes, it was great in many aspects. We were solid, scoring tries from turnovers, from set-pieces, from battering down the doors. There was a lot of variety, pace and unpredictability to our game.
"The biggest challenge was struggling to focus when things went a bit sour after our try was disallowed. We spoke on Monday about how we can stop the rot and get back on track when things are not going our way.
"We want to do for the whole 80 minutes what we did in those first 50 minutes."
Warriors face another South African side - Lions - at Scotstoun on Saturday.
After two rounds of action and 14 matches played in the tournament, the South African sides have lost 13 of their fixtures with the Lions' opening weekend win over Zebre the only positive result for them so far.
Carolan expects the South African teams expects to improve once they adjust to the new surroundings.
He said: "At the moment, I think they're finding their feet. I think they're having to do all the adaptation to life and rugby in the northern hemisphere. It's different to what they're used to.
"The ball-in-play time is new for them. They're very set-piece orientated.
"They've got big men in their packs so they're having to get used to teams keeping the ball in play and moving them round for longer periods of time.
"A lot of the tries they're leaking are after multiple phases. Will they get better? Yes, they will. Will they be tougher at home? Yes, they will. It will be up to us to adapt to their ways once we get on the road.
"They're all missing some players from the national team as well so they'll get stronger when we meet them again."
The South Africans are currently playing all their matches in Europe, with their home games to come later in the campaign.
Carolan feels the lack of a home support is also a factor in the results, with 12 of the opening 16 URC matches going the way of the host team.
He said: "It won't be helping them that they're having to play away all the time. It's fantastic to have supporters back in the stadiums.
"We had 7,000 of our supporters here on Saturday and even when things are not going well, it's great to have a crowd behind you.
"Last year without the supporters, it was definitely a level playing field but you can see with the results so far that it's all the home teams who are getting the results this season, and that's very much down to having supporters egging you on. It's been massive."