Denis Leamy was a hero of Munster’s better days. A two-time winner of the European Cup in 2006 and 2008 and still on the scene when the claimed won the Magners League in 2011, which also happens to be the last thing they’ve won.

At the heart of his chat was the victory Franco Smith’s team won at Thomond Park in March, the fantastic whirlwind nature of it, with four tries in the opening half and a 31-0 lead established early in the second half.

“We were under pressure at the scrum, under pressure up front, we lacked calmness in attack, we were sloppy and turned over ball,” said Leamy.

“Some of our stuff in defence, they’re not the sort of pictures we want to see. We had some really poor bits around the contact. We were outfought. Glasgow were hungrier than us.”

So, not all that happy, then. All of it was bang on the money. Leamy was talking to journalists but, maybe, he was also talking to his players, sending them another message, reminding them of how Glasgow came to their own place and blew them away.

It was the kind of thing that Munster did a lot in his heyday – a ratcheting up of the heat. Only then it would have been Ronan O’Gara or Paul O’Connell or the late Anthony Foley doing it.

Now it’s Leamy with a different generation. What they lack in class coming to Scotstoun, they won’t lack in desire, not after Thomond Park.

So this quarter-final could be a belter. Glasgow haven’t lost any match at home since reigning European champions, La Rochelle, beat them in January 2022.

Munster, meanwhile, haven’t lost away from home in the URC in six months, a run that includes a victory over the Stormers a few weeks back. They’re the first northern hemisphere team to beat the Stormers in their own stadium.

There is an edge between these two clubs that goes back nearly seven years to when Keith Earls got sent-off for a tackle on Fraser Brown in a European game and then accused the hooker of making a meal of it.

Earls later apologised. Brown is on the bench on Saturday. Earls is injured and may have played the last game of his stellar Munster career.

For a spell there was a fairly relentless back and forward between the two sets of players. How could it have been any different when you had Ryan Wilson on one side and Peter O’Mahony on the other, a pair of characters who revelled in the aggression of the fixture.

That kind of narkiness has died down, but this is knockout rugby so it would hardly be a shock it flared up again on Saturday. There are seriously competitive animals on both sides.

There’s also a desperation for victory. Sure, the winner has the near-impossible task of Leinster away in the semi-final but neither of them will be thinking that far ahead. It’s all about the here and now.

‘It will be a contest to amaze & appal’

In the battle of the locks, Scott Cummings (6ft 6in, 18st) and Richie Gray (6ft 10in, almost 20st), will go up against Jean Kleyn (6f 8in, 19st) and RG Snyman (6ft 9in, 18st).

Behind them, there are intriguing head-to-heads. Rory Darge, a sensational performer since his return from injury, is Glasgow’s turnover king. Matt Fagerson and Jack Dempsey are big hitters and big carriers.

Munster have Tadhg Beirne, one of the best in the world at the breakdown, back in the team for the first time since January after an injury that took him out of most of Ireland’s Grand Slam season.

They also have O’Mahony, who remains a warhorse. Gavin Coombes, at No 8, scores a freakish number of tries. He has 14 in 18 URC and Champions Cup games this season.

Proper Johnny Matthews stuff, that. Since December, the Glasgow hooker, picked ahead of Brown and George Turner, has scored one, two, three and five tries in different games. All he’s missing is a four to complete the set.

Every time Glasgow launch a lineout maul from close-range, all eyes will be looking for Matthews.

For injury and selectorial reasons, there’s no Sam Johnson, Cole Forbes, George Turner, Josh McKay and Domingo Miotti in the Glasgow 23 – and yet it looks strong as hell. Smith has Huw Jones on the bench, where the coach has gone for a 6-2 split. Jones or George Horne is the back-up 10 to Tom Jordan. A gamble.

Glasgow have been winning every which way, through power, through pace, through unrelenting ambition.

Leamy mentioned their footwork, which has improved immeasurably on Smith’s watch. It’s not just the footwork of the backs, it’s the footwork of the ball-carrying forwards, the little steps into contact that throw a defence off kilter and give faster ball to the waves coming behind.

Quick ball is what this Glasgow side lives for, so the return of Beirne is timely for the visitors. When it comes to the breakdown there are few flankers on the planet as good as the Munster blindside, with O’Mahony not far behind him.

What Darge, Fagerson and Dempsey do in this area will go a long way to decide who comes out the right side of it. It’ll be a contest to amaze and, possibly, appal at the same time. It’ll be brutally physical, not far off Test-match ferocity.

Glasgow are in as good a place as they’ve been in since beating Munster in a memorable semi-final in 2014 and beating them again in an even more memorable final in 2015.

Older Munster heads won’t forget those days. Younger Munster heads don’t need to. The March game is enough to stoke their fire.

The advice is to strap yourselves in for a turbulent but thrilling ride. Never mind the players on the pitch – everybody watching should have the oxygen on standby, just in case.