When Munster finally got their hands on a trophy to end their 12-year wait for silverware last May, John Ryan was watching on from the south east of Australia.
Having made his debut for Munster just a few months after their Celtic League win in 2011, the tighthead logged more than 200 appearances for the province across 12 years. But while he featured nine times in all competitions during last season he was on the other side of the world as a member of New Zealand's Chiefs when he watched Peter O'Mahony and Keith Earls lift the trophy in Cape Town.
The 35-year-old is back at Munster again this season for what is his third stint at the province.
Having left in the summer of 2022 for Wasps, he made a swift return to Munster when the English club folded. His second spell at Thomond Park was just three months long, having committed to playing for the Chiefs in Super Rugby alongside his future Munster teammate Alex Nankivell.
And while he wouldn't change anything about his season in Waikato, he admits there was a small piece of him that was regretting not being able to be part of the celebrations.
"There's a tiny bit of that, but only a small bit, but I wouldn’t change it," he said of missing out on the trophy presentation.
"I really wouldn’t [change it], because of the life experience. My family had a great time, being a part of the team, getting to know these world-class players was an experience I wouldn’t trade at all.
"But I was lucky enough to be able to watch that final in Canberra after our second last league game at three o’clock in the morning. Myself and Alex Nankivell watched it and there was only a feeling of pride. There was no 'ah typical..’ really. My regret was not being able to celebrate with the lads.
"There was a small element of it, but no, mainly pride. I feel like I was a part of the team. I played a few league games last year so I think I’m going to get a medal at some stage."
While Ryan missed out on the Munster celebrations, he came so close to celebrating a title win in Chiefs colours, as they fell to a 25-20 defeat to the Crusaders in the Super Rugby final in June.
The Corkman played 18 of the Chiefs' 19 games in a hectic season, and his jaunt to Super Rugby was rare for an Irish international.
And he says dealing with the notoriously quick pace of the Super Rugby game was an eye-opening experience early in the campaign, following a ball-in-play time of 44 minutes which is quite high by any standards.
"I went into the meeting the week after and it was: 'That’s okay, but we want to keep going.’ I was like: 'Jeeze, this is mental.’
"They were saying: ‘We want to kick the ball long and on, we do not want the ball going into touch, we want to just run everything.’
"That was a big wake-up call for me, and I was like, ‘I need to get way fitter here.’ That was the first thing I noticed.
"Everyone notices they don’t kick the ball out, they don’t do box kicks. I don’t think I was in a single caterpillar ruck down in the Chiefs last year, which is mental.
"Genuinely, what I enjoyed most was just playing with some of the lads whop could just make magic happen. Emoni Narawa was just magic, and then obviously Damien McKenzie at '10', and (Etene) Nanai-Seturo and obviously Shaun Stevenson, the back three were crazy. They’d make a line break out of nothing.
"So, it was extremely enjoyable to come out of a ruck and seeing the lads under the posts, and that happened a lot. That was probably the most enjoyable thing, playing on a team who were that individual talented and being a part of this buzz, just saying: ‘God, how am I a part of this team? I’m just hitting rucks here!'" he laughed.
The Munster side he left in January is a lot different to the one he arrived back into during pre-season. The province were starting to turn the corner with their new game style under Graham Rowntree during Ryan's short stint between October and January before they fully clicked in the final third of the campaign.
And the prop says there was a noticeable difference in the confidence of the team in the time between when he left and returned.
"Yeah, there is a big change. There's a lot of belief in the squad, from the younger lads as well coming through.
"It was there last year but I probably came back after the Wasps went into administration where the squad as a whole was probably at a low and maybe a bit of momentum was gathered when all the internationals came back.
"So things built from then on, it wasn't just in the period when I was away, it was definitely coming, you could tell. It was building nicely."
Munster welcome the Stormers to Thomond Park on Saturday for a repeat of that URC final, with both sides looking to recover from disappointing results at the weekend.
The Stormers were beaten in Italy by Benetton while Munster fell to a 21-14 defeat to Ulster in Belfast.
And Ryan says they'll need to improve in a number of areas if they're to get back to winning ways on Saturday.
"It was as plain as day watching it back, you're not going to win a game without a breakdown and they [Ulster] really went after our breakdown and we just weren't good enough physically in that area.
"Obviously some of the lineout stuff wasn't great and we looked at a lot of that and we're looking to fix that, and obviously they're easy fixes.
"They [the Stormers] went quite hard at Treviso and Glasgow over the last few weeks and you can see that they're a team that want to scrummage, but we're a team that wants to scrummage as well and that's a good thing.
"We're definitely not going to shy away from that and hopefully we'll give them a good competition at the weekend and it will be a good contest."
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