'That completely flipped my whole decision-making': Emotional Pat Lam reveals exactly why he is leaving Connacht

Even Oscar Wilde and near-namesake Eduard seem to be ruminating upon it in statue form amidst the huddled throng of Shop Street shoppers.

There has been a visceral outpouring of emotion following the news that Connacht's pied piper Pat Lam is joining Bristol next year on foot of an offer palpably too good to refuse from a variety of angles, not merely financial.

Nearby in the Sportsground, the squad are upping the ante as preparations continue for this weekend's Champions Cup trip to face Wasps.

They are already moving on. Their coach is preparing to. And, though there lingers, quite literally, an air of resignation hereabouts, you get the sense that everyone just wants to "move on".

For this is life. And this is business. Sometimes, perhaps always, you can't live one without the other.

And so Lam prepared to deliver a 30-minute monologue, touching on a variety of deeply personal reflections upon how his life has become inextricably linked with his profession, and how a funeral forced him to re-assess his own life and that of those around him.

He told of how Bristol had already entertained him with one attractive job offer - to go with the unnamed proposition earlier this year from another club - before returning a couple of weeks later with one that simply could not be denied.

The coach, sacked from his penultimate job, father of five children, had to make a simple choice. As Wilde says, the truth is never pure and simple. Harsh reality often trumps romance.

"The IRFU contract does have a six-month notice period. It is the only thing I wasn't comfortable with at the beginning. But I signed it," he said.

"The reality is that I live in the head coaching environment. Before I arrived here I was a sacked coach for seven months: no job, five kids and a wife.

"I had suffered racial abuse, and my four-year-old girl opening the house door to TV cameras like there are here. But these are the choices I make.

"I arrived as head coach into one of the four provinces. . . all the others left before their contracts ended. . . I am the last one standing. This is the world I choose to live in.

"Every November, I get asked about other clubs and discussions start before that time. Bristol were one of a few.

"It was the same chat I had before coming here four years ago. They ask your vision and you tell them here is what I do. So we're aligned.

"My whole process when any offer put to me, I look at my rugby career and I'm responsible for putting food on the table. It's rugby and family. 'Are you okay to got to Newcastle? To Galway?'

"I sat my wife down and we said we're happy here. We love everything about it. Bottom line, I knew it wouldn't be forever.

"Two weeks ago a quite significant offer came in to do what I have done here. 'Come and do what you did at Connacht,' they said.

"That completely flipped my whole decision-making, from rugby to family."

In any event, his head was already turning.

After attending the funeral of Anthony Foley in Killaloe last month, a picture formed in his head of what a life might have to look like beyond rugby. Or, even, without it.

"I'm the second Pat Lam, my grandfather died at 55 when I was nine. My dad has been going through a triple by-pass," he explained.

"And I'm thinking about Axel and wondering if that was me, what would happen to Steph and the kids?

"I had my first child 24 years ago today. I was a teacher, my wife a nurse, but she gave up career to bring up kids.

"This offer made me make a decision about my children. I can pay for a student debt and two others to go to college.

"My daughter can go to training college in Bristol. None of us knows when our number is up but when it does, I can be at peace."

The weekend was a whirlwind; following the People of the Year awards, he and his wife arrived home at 3am; they had to be up five hours later to bake banana cakes for their girl's school, upon whose parents' association they both sit.

"When Steph came home after the school run she cried and was completely upset because she realises we are leaving all her friends," added Lam.

"In professional rugby when you're moving to someone else's home, we understand that you're meeting other people but me and my wife love doing that.

"The history is important but it is the people. There are plenty of beautiful places around the world but it is the people. We are very humbled by what people have been saying. That's why I shared more than normal. I've shared it because this place means a lot to me and the people mean a lot to me."

And as the rain pelted sideways as training resumes and life goes on, we pass Oscar again. The heart was made to be broken, he once said. Sometimes the head must rule, too.

Even though apart, Connacht and Lam should grow as much in each other's absence as they did together. That's sport. And life.