Gavin Cummiskeyhears from the veteran prop about his time and likely future at Leinster.
"Nothing controversial," says a smiling Michael Cheika of Leinster as he leaves his old Springbok prop to it.
Apart from a popped rib, which was already a concern until Leo Cullen accidentally exacerbated matters at a scrum, Ollie Le Roux's short sojourn in Dublin can be classed a success.
Initially, it looked like bad business.
The man is a rugby relic, having racked up 360 first-class games since making his debut for Free State in 1993. A year later he made his Test bow in a 32-15 loss to England in Pretoria.
He has soft hands, akin to those of a Brian O'Driscoll or a Luke Fitzgerald, and a turn of pace that makes you blink and rub your eyes. He also steadies scrums and is blameless for the collapses in Edinburgh and Toulouse that sullied the Leinster season.
Alas, Le Roux will be 35 in May, while Cian Healy will be pushing 21, but his comments yesterday suggest he is keen to extend an initial seven-month deal. After all, he made sacrifices to come here - granted, he got paid - by uprooting his young family and missing what was surely his last ever chance to play in the Currie Cup final.
Are Leinster willing to keep him around? Other frontrow signings have hardly blossomed.
"It's been really different for me coming over with my family. There is a five-week-old baby - trust me, don't do that, it's hectic - and you are really isolated, I found. You don't know a lot of people. It's a new environment, so it's been really hard but we are getting used to it now. I've got the sunshine coming at last.
"I think the club are talking at the moment. Just see. I think this team are a really good team. There is so much we can improve on. In that sense I think I can add a lot of value."
Anyway, while we have the attention of a talkative rugby legend, there are a few issues about Irish rugby worth broaching.
Every season we reach this juncture when the ridiculous Northern Hemisphere structures are criticised.
"The one thing that is weird is the Magners League and the Heineken Cup," he says. "You are changing competitions in a sense the whole time. If you play the Heineken Cup everyone, even the media, is right up there, but suddenly there is a dip.
"I just think the season would be better if you could finish the one competition before going into the other. As a player it doesn't make sense."
Right, compare our rugby cultures. He smiles. Remember, nothing controversial.
"In South Africa I was 130 kilos and probably one of the most mobile guys you will ever see play in the frontrow," he begins. "If I had to play for Ireland I would probably be in the team for 10, 12 years."
Le Roux earned 54 caps over two periods, the last coming in 2002 when he was still just 28.
He goes on to list the many South African props who came through in this period - from Os Du Randt to CJ van der Linde - the men who started the 2007 World Cup final.
"That is the big difference in South Africa; you've got these youngsters pushing the whole time. You've got to keep them down and it gets to a point when they just come through.
"While over here you can see there is much more of a nurturing of that talent. The guys playing rugby are supposed to be the wealthier kids, the softer kids, the private-school kids, whereas back home you go to the poorest areas and the kids are playing rugby. It's a different culture in that sense."
What did he make of the Irish scrum's second-half dismantling of the French on Saturday?
"That is what you expected Ireland to do. You never get very good young props. You always get very good old props because they've (had to) learn how to survive. That's what we always say. That's the responsibility of a guy like John Hayes - to teach the young fellas what it takes to play at that level. That gives you a nice warm feeling."
