JASON Gillespie says he has been encouraged by Yorkshire's development in limited overs cricket this season, despite it ending in more disappointment on Sunday.

The county's coach was hurt by their Royal London one-day Cup semi-final exit to Gloucestershire at Headingley, bemoaning their inability to build on an excellent start with the bat as they limped to 263-9.

A brilliant 137 not out from Australian Michael Klinger then anchored the visitors' chase against a bowling attack which sorely lacked the penetration a Jack Brooks may have provided.

The biggest disappointment of the summer was the Vikings' Twenty20 Blast struggles, a competition in which they failed to advance beyond the North Division group stages for the third year running.

And Gillespie has already identified areas for improvement ahead of next season, one of which is how to construct a one-day innings.

But the Australian insists there is still plenty to be upbeat about heading into 2016.

"I've seen plenty to suggest that we're a team that can compete for trophies in the short of the game," said the man who has already recruited England limited overs star David Willey on a three-year contract.

"I know our Twenty20 hasn't been great either, but we've seen glimpses, and that's a positive.

"We do have the players, in my opinion, to continue on. We just need to be ruthless. When we get on top, we need to stay on top.

"There's been a lot of really good stuff that we've done in the short formats. Unfortunately, we just haven't been as consistent as we'd like.

"We had a lot of starts, and our batters and senior batters need to take responsibility for the situations and push on and get us up to a high score.

"To make the semi-finals is a good effort, but we're never satisfied and we want to be better. We feel we can play better than what we showed against Gloucestershire. We are a better side than that."

The decision to leave fast bowler Brooks out of the side having taken seven wickets in last week's Championship win over Somerset at Headingley drew some criticism from the Yorkshire faithful as they watched Klinger and Hamish Marshall chase down their target with comfort.

But, in truth, the blame for the loss should lie with the side's inability to post a total of 320 plus when they were so well placed at 198-3 in the 36th over of their innings.

Even without Brooks, they would have been red hot favourites to defend that.

"I did say to the lads that there's no point in not talking about the game and not learning anything," added Gillespie.

"Even though our season's over in this form of the game, we need to take something forward.

"A message that came across was that a lot of our lads were looking to rotate the strike square of the wicket. With Klinger and Marshall, they hit did the ground, which Liam Plunkett did (in the quarter-final against Essex) at Chelmsford when he came in.

"The lads have acknowledged it. That's something we can monitor and review it.

"One thing we can't afford to do is make the same mistakes and have the same conversations next year. That would be unacceptable."