Mike Prendergast could melt into big city life in Paris whatever was happening with Racing 92 - good, bad or indifferent.
Having made the decision to come home to Munster as their new forwards coach, that option isn't on the table.
He is well known in his home place Limerick, which is a goldfish bowl for rugby and the Reds, as a former scrum-half with the province.
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It has been a slow start to the season. After two opening losses in Wales, Munster picked up their first win of the new URC campaign last Saturday, without failing to win a bonus point against Zebre.
Prendergast has definitely noticed the change. “Yeah, it’s been very different," he smiled.
"In Paris you can go for a coffee or go for lunch, and you don’t meet anyone, and they don’t ask you any questions.
"Here, it’s a lot different and obviously we got a nice result last week, the performance wasn’t the best.
"When your performances overall haven’t been where people maybe expect them to be, yeah there’s a lot more to it, there’s more conversations around it.
"But look, I knew that coming home. It’s a great club and it’s a great rugby city so you’ve got to embrace that as well, with the good times and with the tough times.
"And we know sport is like that and I know it very well. So I’m just getting used to that again.”
Prendergast is confident that the many individual errors that have been racked up over the first three weekends are down to players getting used to the new systems and ideas of their brand new coaching set-up.
Graham Rowntree has moved up to head coach in place of Johann van Graan and Prendergast is part of the sweeping change that, Munster fans hope, can end a long period of underachievement.
Already, however, the Reds are playing catch-up with a place in next season's Champions Cup already under threat. Just like Friday's opponents Connacht, they are badly in need of a victory.
"We're first to admit it, we know we're not as good as we need to be and we've got to learn quicker.
"There is a path there that we're looking at and we're at the start of that at the moment.
"You don’t just go into a club and decide to put in a type of framework and system and expect it just to click straight away.
"You’re changing the philosophy in a way. You’re not changing everything but there’s certain parts and certain aspects that you’re changing - and you’re just trying to change habits as well."
Prendergast is staying positive in terms of the task ahead - and is prepared to be patient.
Soon enough Munster's Ireland frontliners will be heading off for the November internationals and that will cause further disruption.
"That’s going to be a bit more challenging as well," he acknowledged.
"But there's no timeframe there. Me as a coach and us as a coaching staff, we're going to improve every player and try and make our depth chart as good as we can so I wouldn't actually put a timeframe on it.
"As we said before, Rome wasn't built in a day. It is going to take a bit of time.
"We need to be better at what we're doing in terms of our progression - but we do see green shoots there."
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