Leo Cullen has welcomed another "positive step" in Dan Leavy's progress as the Leinster back row enjoyed a Man of the Match display in his first start for the province in 20 months as his comeback from injury continues apace.
The Ireland international, who had made brief substitute appearances for Leinster in the Guinness Pro14 in recent weeks as he continues his recovery from a serious knee injury sustained in March 2019, was involved from the beginning as Cullen's side ran out comfortable winners over Edinburgh at the RDS on Monday night.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, the Leinster head coach was pleased with what he saw from the 26-year-old flanker.
"He brings great energy and presence to the group," he said.
"We've tried to be quite patient with his return - 30 minutes I think he played here against Zebre and then the two away days where he had 20 minutes roughly in each game - so to get a start was another positive step.
"As I said, we tried to be patient with his returns but yeah, he's a big character in the group and he's been out for a long, long time."
The player himself told RTÉ Sport that "it felt great" to score a try in the process.
"The last couple of weeks, I've been building towards getting a start and accumulating those minutes every week has really made that transition back playing 60 minutes a lot easier for me," said Leavy.
"So I wasn't thrown in on the deep end. As a player you always want to play straight away but credit to the management and the coaches and my physio for taking the slow and steady route."
Cullen also expressed satisfaction with the overall performance as Leinster sealed victory by a 40-point margin against their Scottish opponents.
"We were pretty clinical in terms of taking some of the opportunities that we created, so overall lots of good stuff from the first half, particularly in some of the conditions we were playing in with a pretty strong wind," he said.
"Once we had a lead, it was always going to be quite hard for Edinburgh to chase the game in the second half, so maybe it was a little bit disjointed in the second half with lots of changes from both teams.
"But overall we were pleased with another win which keeps us ticking along."
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