John Muldoon, this Portumna chieftain, only after famine years did he feast at the banquet of champions.
Now he wants more.
“I’ve been in a dressing room before where people have said ‘Oh, we’re on TV this weekend. This is a great opportunity for us.’
“What did they mean by that? They meant this is a great opportunity for others to look at us so we could get picked up by another team.
“No one is thinking that anymore.
“I never thought about it that way. I always thought about it as a great opportunity to go and play well for Connacht.”
Problem is, through the rugged history of the western province, heavy falls swiftly followed days that made them swell with pride.
Pro 12 champions after playing in a ultra-positive manner, during these sleepy opening weeks of the next campaign they seemed readable, far too easy to knock off their perch, as an injury ravaged squad lost three opening matches.
A ground breaking victory over Ulster in Galway last Friday night shut that narrative down.
At least temporarily.
But falling from peak to valley happens so easily. Especially with no Springbok outhalf, Marnitz Boshoff, on deck as Champions Cup rugby arrives into Galway.
Remember the toppling of Saturday’s visitors Toulouse at Stade Ernest Wallon in December 2013? The shock yet deserving 16-14 victory reverberated around Europe only to be followed a week later by a 37-9 thud at the Sportsground.
Not many remain from those early Pat Lam days. Muldoon and Jake Heenan are still there but much of that result came from the boot of Dan Parks and brilliance of Robbie Henshaw.
Henshaw made a physically impressive, skill-littered debut for Leinster on Saturday while coaches Andre Bell and come January Dave Ellis will have both returned to New Zealand.
There is also talk about Munster courting Ultan Dillane and Bundee Aki, which can only be silenced when the pair sign new deals.
“That’s a compliment,” Lam shoots back. “A total compliment. It happens in professional rugby. The more you perform the more you are in the shop window.”
The IRFU are keen to sign Aki to a national contract ahead of his availability to play international rugby, via residency next year, while Dillane is a Kerry man missed by the Munster Branch recruiting arm.
“Racing came and took Johnny Sexton out of Leinster,” noted Lam. “So it is more a compliment that we have staff and players that are attracted to other clubs and other countries.
“Means we are heading in the right direction.”
Muldoon never wants to go back the other way. 33 now, the Connacht captain has been around for winter nights when to win, to catch unwary visitors off guard, they needed a lashing storm from the Atlantic Ocean.
But this last rugby outpost before America are champions now, which makes them top seeds in a European Pool that includes the most successful French and English clubs (Wasps) this rebranded tournament has ever known.
“Pat has converted a lot of us by showing what you do right in training you do right in matches, and by doing it right, the result takes care of itself.
“The whole time through the losses no one was panicking.
“Thankfully it only took us three weeks.”
Until last season that 2013 Toulouse victory had been a high water mark for Connacht rugby.
“Where we were at the time, and considering the history of where we had come from, it still marks up there as one of the better days in my career,” said Muldoon.
“Pat ensured we went over with a plan and a belief. Don’t think anyone from the outside looking in thought that could happen. The fact Sky Sports changed their live match halfway through showed they didn’t think anything was going to happen either.”
Lam arrivedthat season as a back to basics convalescing coach following a tough campaign in charge of the Auckland Blues but that game made him “realise what this club was capable of doing.”
Muldoon, this wise and simple man, could be reciting The Fisherman by WB Yeats when comparing Connacht rugby in 2016 to the western seaboard: “We have our history. It is a lot like where we are from, our landscape, our environment is a tough place. But inside that tough place there is a beauty to it. Maybe I am getting sentimental in my old age but there is something special about it. If you come to Galway yes, there is a harshness to it but a beauty to it as well.
“We are seeing a lot of that in Connacht rugby recently. But it has to be based on home grown players, Irish players. Because it means everything to them.”
That’s John Muldoon, as cold and passionate as the dawn.
