Joe Schmidt and Vern Cotter keen to defuse Conor Murray row

Ireland boss Joe Schmidt has backed scrum-half Conor Murray’s view of his treatment at the hands of Glasgow Warriors but said he hopes the bad blood at club level will not spill over into the opening RBS 6 Nations match at Murrayfield.

Ireland travel to Edinburgh for round one of the 2017 Championship on February 4 just three weeks after Munster edged a tight Champions Cup contest at Glasgow’s Scotstoun, a game which provoked controversy over what Murray perceived as the deliberate targeting by Warriors forwards, all of whom Scottish internationals, at his standing leg as he kicked from behind rucks.

Murray, one of 13 Munstermen in the Ireland squad, said last week that playing in a pivotal position like scrum-half he accepted he was fair game to opposition forwards but admitted he had been “properly pissed off” by the treatment he received and said he was lucky not to have been seriously injured by the tactic, a point which national head coach Schmidt echoed during yesterday’s RBS 6 Nations launch in London, suggesting his star No. 9 could have blown out his knee.