Edinburgh 14 Munster 16: Wrong call ends chance to snatch win

“You are going to have ebbs and flows in the season," Solomons said. "I thought we played poorly against Zebre and we deserved to lose, I thought we played much better against Connacht and perhaps deserved a draw in that game, and tonight I thought we deserved better.

“You have to look at each game as it comes. The season is a marathon not a sprint. You can’t get into a tizzy about it – you have to get your performance right and when you do that you get the results. We didn’t get the performance right tonight.”

Solomons insisted Edinburgh’s poor decision making was crucial in last night's loss, but he also expressed his frustration at the way referee David Wilkinson handled Munster’s final, decisive penalty, which was kicked by Ian Keatley from close to the halfway line.

“It is hugely disappointing because it is a game that, as far as I’m concerned, we should have won, and we have, in the first instance, only ourselves to blame because our decision making was poor and that cost us in a tight game,” he said. "The second thing is, and I’ve got to have a closer look at, but certainly from what I saw of their last penalty – if you look at where the scrum was, where the penalty was given and where the kick was taken from – it wasn’t in the same place.

“It definitely looked to me like a metre forward and that kick seemed to just scrape the bar – so that’s something I have to look at carefully. It didn’t make me too happy.”

Solomons added: “In the first half, we didn’t have territory and possession – errors cost us and penalties cost us. The second half was definitely better but I think our decision making was not good. And that was the key factor.”

John Ryan's try, converted by Keatley, gave Munster an early lead. Sam Hidalgo-Clyne put Edinburgh on the board with a penalty and he and Keatley exchanged further penalties to make it 10-6 to the visitors at half-time.

William Helu scored his first Edinburgh try six minutes into the second half. Hidalgo-Clyne missed the conversion but then added a penalty that gave the home side a 14-10 lead, only for two Keatley penalties to turn the scoreline around.

Despite playing second fiddle to Munster for long periods of the match, Edinburgh still managed to manufacture a chance to grab a win at the death, after Damian Hoyland intercepted near his own line and launched a scything counter-attack.

That took play to within inches of Munster’s line, and a decision was made to go for a drop-goal. However, stand-off Greig Tonks was in the sin-bin at this point, so Hidalgo-Clyne dropped into the pocket. Hoyland deputised at scrum-half, but his pass was not quite crisp enough to give the kicker the time he needed, and the effort was charged down.

Solomons could scarcely hide his frustration that the team had gone for this riskier option instead of continuing to build pressure against an exhausted Munster.

“If we had held on to the ball we would either have eventually got a penalty or we would have got over [for the try]," he said. "I thought we just had to be patient and composed having got there after Damian made a great break up the right touchline.

“I don’t think we were patient enough or composed enough throughout the game. We tried to force things and in big games like this the margins are fine.”

Edinburgh: B Kinghorn (D Fife 54); D Hoyland, W Helu (A Strauss 79), M Scott, T Brown; G Tonks, S Hidalgo-Clyne; A Dickinson, R Ford, W Nel (J Andress 61), A Bresler, A Toolis, M Coman (N Manu 67), H Watson (R Grant 73), C Du Preez.

Munster: S Zebo; G van den Heever, K Earls, F Saili, R O’Mahony; I Keatley, C Murray; D Kilcoyne (J Cronin 48), D Casey, J Ryan (M Sagario 56), D Ryan, D Foley, D O’Callaghan (R Copeland 71) J O’Donoghue (J Coghlan 61), C Stander.

Referee – David Wilkinson (Ireland)