Munster captain and Ireland back row O’Mahony agreed Murray’s own forwards could do more to protect their prize asset around the fringes. Speaking after the province secured a home Champions Cup quarter-final with a 22-10 win over Racing 92 at Thomond Park on Saturday, he said: “Yeah, we probably do.

“Pack-wise we probably have to look after him better, not just a couple of weeks ago or last week but in every game, they got at him again tonight around the breakdown. We weren’t as accurate as we hoped and you always have to look after your nine.”

Whether any animosity between Munster and Glasgow spills over into the Test arena remains to be seen but O’Mahony said he was doubtful.

“We’ll have to wait and see. We’ll see what their tactics bring. To be fair, when the final whistle goes that’s a line in the sand and you get on with it and I think Mur (Murray) had a reason to be upset but you get on with things. It’s a different game and a different kettle of fish.”

O’Mahony has some battles of his own heading into Ireland’s Six Nations camp at Carton House this week. A year out of the game with a serious knee injury, the Corkman has seen Munster team-mate CJ Stander take over in the green number six Test jersey, reducing his provincial captain to a bench role during November’s Guinness Series when O’Mahony finally made his return from injury.

Three months into that comeback, the 27-year-old said he was looking forward to the challenge, even after what he described as the most physical match of his season so far against Racing.

“I feel good. I feel sore now but in two or three days time you start feeling better and the change of tack in the camp, the different buzz. Everyone loves the Six Nations, everyone would love a shot to get into the starting XV or the matchday 23 and get a chance to perform in a Six Nations game with the Scotland game coming up. It’s always a great few weeks. It’s a great competition.”

With 13 Munster players called into Joe Schmidt’s 40-man Six Nations squad, there will be plenty of southern confidence pouring into Irish training sessions and O’Mahony was delighted to have signed off from provincial duties with another rousing but hard-fought win in front of a sell-out Thomond Park crowd.

Yet the Munster captain refused to look too far ahead to their home quarter-final with Toulouse on the first weekend in April.

“An important point of our thinking is that we are next-game focused,” he said. “I don’t think we have talked about it really but it was nice to get back to the dressing room and know we had a home quarter-final, knowing that took a little bit of pressure off. It’s been a long nine, 10,12 weeks, a lot of big, big games for lots of reasons and you lose one or two and it’s a different kettle of fish. It was nice to come in and just sit down and take a breath.”

That said, winning a difficult pool and earning second seeding for the knockout stages was an achievement that had been difficult to imagine when the draw was made last summer.

“You don’t look that far ahead but the first thing that comes to your head obviously, Glasgow – probably the most in-form team in the PRO12 in the last three or four years, Leicester, the history they have and Racing the Top 14 champions and you look at it and go that’s a tough group so you get down to it then and I’d have to say I’m over the moon, I mightn’t look it but I’m very happy with the way we finished up.”