Like most coaches who come to Ireland from New Zealand or Australia, Clayton McMillan has now experienced the step up in energy on the week of a big Champions Cup tie.
At times the northern hemisphere season can be a truncated mess; a first block of games followed by a three-week international break, before a 10-game stretch of URC and Champions Cup leading into the Six Nations, after which you're into the meaty end of the campaign.
The Super Rugby calendar is far simpler and linear, week-on-week from February through to the summer, after which the international window or the domestic season takes over.
Even aside from the international breaks in this part of the world, the change in focus from one competition to the other can take a bit of getting used to.
Up here, the United Rugby Championship matters, but the Champions Cup matters more.
McMillan got an early sense of that when he spent a week at the province last March in the lead-up to their Round of 16 win against La Rochelle, and that would have been amplified by the sight of a huge travelling support for their Pool 2 opener against Bath this season, where thousands of supporters lined the streets to welcome them to The Rec.
"It hasn't surprised me. It is a cool competition," he said, ahead of tomorrow's crucial meeting with Toulon (1pm Irish time).
"You can be on the other side of the world and you still get a sense of the occasion and how important the rugby is."
The New Zealander's (above) consistent message since he arrived has been about consistency, and his desire to find a more regular balance between the province's best and worst.
In short, more seven-out-of-10 performances would be ideal rather than a bunch of fives and nines.
He said: "I understand the importance of Europe, there's a huge buzz around it, but also our challenge is to ensure that we don't put those big games on such a pedestal that the other games that we have every other week, we lose a sense of purpose in comparison.
"We're not good enough at the moment to be thinking that way.
"We actually need to approach every week in isolation and prepare for each team to be at their best and know that we need to be somewhere near our best to win those games.
"I do love the bouncing between competitions. I love playing different teams who obviously play differently, referee differently, different crowds, different cultures. It's an amazing part of this competition.
"As a coach I feel the same about every game and want us to approach it the same way."
They're yet to find that consistent temperature. At times this season it's been the same old case of heads in the oven and feet in the freezer, the latest being last week's dismal 28-3 defeat to Ulster in Belfast.
"I think we'd just be disappointed off the back of last week if there wasn't some sort of response," the former Chiefs coach added.
"I think people, Munster supporters, even if you lose, will appreciate that as long as you do that, going down fighting, and that's what we haven't done on a couple of occasions this year, which is disappointing.
"I get the natural excitement around Europe, around derby games. But as I said from day one, our challenges at this stage with the squad I think are around meeting our threshold, and trying not to fall too far from that.
"There have been days when we've let ourselves down."
As difficult a task as they face against Toulon on Sunday, it would more of a surprise than a shock for them to defeat the three-time champions at Stade Felix Mayol, just as they did two years ago.
The French side are unbeaten at home this season, and are level on points with Munster in a delicately poised Pool 2, having impressed in their 45-34 win against Bath last month.
"Toulon, they're a physical side and they're electric," McMillan said.
"They’ve got a good dose of Pacific flavour in there and they’ve just got a real balance, and you can’t afford to expect them to just play a narrow-minded game.
"They can play through you, they can play around you and they can play a kicking game and they can play a loose game if they want to.
"So, that's the challenge when you play teams of that calibre. You're going to get nothing for free and you have to work hard and be very accurate in everything you do.
"We respect what Toulon are going to bring to the table but we really need to just tidy up our own backyard.
"The real positives for me have been around our setpiece. I think our scrum has been improving. Our lineout has made some significant improvement and I think over the last while we're starting to see some reward with that.
"It's just little momentary lapses or a lack of physicality at a crucial moment that we're paying a heavy price for. So it's just being consistent in our performance will keep us in the fight in every game."
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