ALAN SOLOMONS is a master at putting up red flags to divert attention away from uncomfortable truths, and he excelled himself after this third defeat in as many outings for his capital side.

The wily South African insisted that some shoddy decision making by his team was the key factor in their demise, and even expressed his frustration that Munster stand-off Ian Keatley had been allowed to take the match winning penalty in the 67th minute from a few feet closer to the posts than he should have.

The truth is that Edinburgh’s struggles in recent weeks cannot be dismissed quite so easily. Their lack of accuracy and intensity in almost every facet of the game during the first 40 minutes on Saturday was jaw-dropping given the way this team swaggered to four confident wins on the bounce during the opening month of the season.

The start of the second half was better, with a fine try being scored in the 46th minute by Tongan international Will Helu, after excellent build-up work from Damian Hoyland and Tom Brown. That put Edinburgh into the lead for the first time, and with Munster centre Francis Saili being shown the yellow-card for rolling around on the wrong side of the ruck, the match was there for that taking – but the home team failed to capitalise.

It is hard to imagine any of the genuine contenders in this league allowing such a commanding position to slip through their fingers against a hard-working and disciplined, but eminently beatable Munster team.

“You are going to have ebbs and flows in a season. We played poorly against Zebre and we deserved to lose, but I thought we played much better against Connacht and perhaps deserved a win or draw. Tonight, I thought we deserved better, but we have to look at ourselves and say our decision-making was not good, we weren't patient and we weren't composed. Had we been we could have won that game,’ said Solomons

“It's not a major issue. You can look at it and say: ‘Oh well, you've lost your last three games’. But you've got to look at each game and see where you are with each game,” he added.

It would be foolhardy to suggest that the wheels have become completely detached from the Edinburgh bandwagon at this stage. Despite playing well below the standard they set themselves at the start of the campaign, they were still within two points of claiming a win over the second top team in the league on Saturday night. And a number of missing players – such as David Denton, John Hardie, Grant Gilchrist and Ben Toolis – are bound to add new impetus when they join the selection mix. However, if the stated aim of qualifying for the play-offs this year is to be achieved, then the capital outfit are going to have to get a bit more ruthless sooner rather than later.

Edinburgh were on the back foot from the very start, with John Ryan rumbling over in the seventh minute and Keatley adding the conversion. They briefly edged their way back into contention with a Hidalgo-Clyne penalty three minutes later, and were gifted a one man advantage for ten minutes when Munster winger Gerhard van den Heever clumsily collided with Tom Brown as he leapt to collect the restart.

But they squandered the subsequent line-out, and spent all of the sin-bin period barricaded inside their own half – very nearly losing try number two when Keith Earls scooped up Conor Murray’s wonderfully weighted kick into the corner, only for Brown to wrestle the Irishman into touch as he dived for the line.

Edinburgh somehow managed to go into the break only four points adrift, thanks to a second Hidalgo-Clyne penalty in the 39th minute.

Helu’s try and a third Hidalgo-Clyne penalty briefly raised hopes at the start of the second half, but two more successful kicks from Keatley put the visitors back in the driving seat.

Edinburgh had the chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat at the very end when Hoyland launched an audacious last-gasp counter-attack from an interception near his own line. They made it to within inches of the scoring zone, but then opted from a drop-goal instead of continuing to build pressure, and Hidalgo-Clyne’s effort was charged down.

“Sammy [Hidalgo-Clyne] did it because he thought he had an opportunity to win us the game, but if we had just been patient and composed there was no need to go for a drop. We just had to hold onto the ball. If we had got a penalty, it would have been 17-16 and we would be having a different conversation now,” lamented Solomons.

Edinburgh will have an opportunity to take a breather from their travails in the Pro 12 next weekend, when their European Challenge Cup campaign gets under way at home to Grenoble on Friday night. This diversion had a galvanising effect on the side last year – and Solomons will doubtless be looking for a similar sort of upshot this time round.