Alas, for the indefatigable back-row warrior there will not be a third Grand Slam following Saturday’s Six Nations defeat to France and the odds on a third title in a row now appear slim, but O’Mahony will be more inclined to stop his mind drifting when there is still a chance of silverware in Rome this Saturday. “Knowing the task that’s at hand, it makes life a lot easier,” O’Mahony said. “You know, you can feel yourself drifting for the odd minute or two and you're thinking down the line, and then, you know, there's no point doing that, there's too much work to be done. There’s stuff I can do now that can affect how I perform. “And you know what? Being where you are, you enjoy it better and I’m trying to enjoy it as best as I can, knowing it’s the last one. I'm trying to be around the team room even more than I usually am and being available to people and having the craic. I'm trying to be involved in it as much I can.” It is fitting, given the timing of O’Mahony’s announcement of his intention to call time on his playing career that he should be involved in a Heineken 0.0 Match Day experiment to measure the differences in enjoyment levels when watching a match alone and being in company in front of the box. He and former Ireland soccer international John O’Shea had their brains monitored while they took in a game, O’Mahony in the company of friends proving that being in company amplifies excitement. He is just a couple of months away from leaving the field behind and joining the ranks of the armchair quarterbacks full time and he admitted he has been banished from the family viewing room at home to watch matches in his own company. “It's not as enjoyable for me, no. It's quite stressful. I enjoy watching rugby when I know the result. Jess insists I record it and then watch it once I know the result because I've watched a few games live in front of the kids and there's a bit more language and stuff that I do. So I’m not a very good person to watch games with, I’d say, but if there's nothing at stake and it isn’t one of my teams, I'd have a bit of craic.” O’Mahony insisted he still has plenty of objectives to fulfil before he does hang up the boots at the end of the season but as he approaches his last ever week in Ireland camp and what he hopes will be a 114th and final cap for his country, he conceded there are still adjustments for him to make. Speaking to the Irish Examiner last week ahead of his swansong in green at Aviva Stadium, he said: “I'm starting to get my head around it. I'm sure it will hit home properly when it actually comes around, but yeah, it's going to be different. It's going to be very different. “It was a lovely day at training and I sat down afterwards on my own, and I was watching the lads doing their bits of extras and was thinking ‘Jesus, pending selection, this is my third last training session of my career with Ireland’. “It’s emotional, of course, but at the same time you have to get on with it and battle on. It’s part of life.” Life with Munster, he admitted, had been more complicated than his Ireland experience. “They're very different for me in lots of ways. When it boils down to it, my province means the world to me. My country and international rugby is the pinnacle of rugby but I’ve loved playing for Munster, loved it, loved it to bits. I’ve been very lucky with the people that I now call friends, the experiences that I've had. It's been difficult, more difficult in lots of ways as well. “I've had plenty more tough days than I’ve had good days. I've had some spectacularly good days with Munster, don’t get me wrong, you know, big, big games that we've won, games that we shouldn’t have won, just some of the greatest days ever. “But lacking some trophies for me, which I'm sure when I look back on it, it will be a tough look back at some of it. When I first came into the squad it was full of people who had won a couple of Heineken Cup medals and I really wanted to drive that on with regard to the success of the club and whatever way you look at it, that hasn't been the case. “And me being the captain for over a decade, you have to think some of that comes back to me and that's something that I'll have to live with. “So definitely a different..., and I don't want that to sound negative, It's a different outlook, different emotions definitely, but at the same time what a privilege it's been to play for Munster for as long as I have and my country.” At least lifting the URC trophy as captain in Cape Town almost two years ago helped make some amends for Munster’s European silverware drought. “Yeah, unbelievably special, the group that we had and the manner of the way we did it. We were away from home, I reckon, for six or seven games on the bounce and it was an unbelievably difficult run-in that we left ourselves with and I think that made it even more special, the day we lifted it over in South Africa. “It was an incredible relief for me, but an unbelievable sense of achievement because I don't think anyone's done a run-in like that to a trophy, not in a long time. You look at the stats, a quarter-final, semi-final, final, there's very few people who actually win away from home. And that's not just in rugby, that’s across sport and we went about it in as hard a way as you can go about it. And that definitely made that day one that we could nearly scratch off one or two of the bad days as a result of that. “It was an unbelievably special one and that medal means a huge amount to me.” The prospect of further glory with Ireland lessened somewhat on Saturday but O’Mahony will approach his remaining games with hope undiminished. “Yeah, yeah, there's more on the table hopefully. And there's more to get with Munster. We need to do a bit of a work there but you never say never with us.”