TO be fair, Alan Solomons has always said it would take time for him to sort Edinburgh out.

Now, after his side's defeat in Ireland in their opening RaboDirect Pro12 fixture of the season, last night he knows exactly how much work he has to do.

Any optimism that may have been built up in a couple of reasonably encouraging warm-up performances lasted less than a minute. From their first possession, Munster swung the ball both ways and found plenty of space on the wings as their visitors packed the midfield and left the outside channels wide open. It set the pattern for the game. Munster could always make ground by spinning the ball wide and when Edinburgh did have the ball they could not control it well enough to apply enough pressure, with their kicking game particularly inept.

Solomons has made so secret of the problems he has faced. He took up the head coach's position only three weeks ago and defence coach Omar Mouneimne had his first session with the players only five days ago. They have had no time to change the formula that clearly failed last season and instant results were never on the cards, as this game proved.

The key is to strip things back to the lowest common denominator, and you could see Solomons' influence at work the first time Edinburgh got the ball, deciding to hit up on five one-pass runs before kicking for position. Then, in contrast and in case the coaches were under any illusions about the frailty of the defence, they allowed Munster easy yards to relieve the pressure.

Somehow, Edinburgh weathered the storm, and broke upfield to win a penalty, kicked by Piers Francis, the fly-half handed the duty in the absence of Greig Laidlaw who has a knee injury that will keep him out for a month.

The defence, however, remains Edinburgh's real weak point and Munster were happy to exploit all the problems with the Scots alignment. Fly-half Ian Keatley did the hard work in setting up the home side's opening try, threatening to jink through on his own and then popping the ball over the top to Denis Hurley, who had just enough strength to wriggle through Dougie Fife's tackle and get the ball to the front edge of the line. It took the television match official to make the call, but it gave the home side the lead and Edinburgh a warning.

Bad soon got worse. With a penalty coming anyway, Munster wing Johne Murphy nudged through a speculative kick that bounced back off the Edinburgh cover straight into the hands of captain James Coughlan, who notched the second touchdown. With Keatley adding the conversion and a penalty, it was already looking like a long, hard night for Edinburgh, and the trouble they were having defending down the wings was not helped when Lee Jones found himself in the sin- bin for tacking Ronan O'Mahony in the air.

Only a player going offside stopped Munster exploiting the gap immediately, but prop James Cronin then rumbled through the Edinburgh defence and was awarded the try even though it looked as if Francis had got his body under the ball.

In reply, Edinburgh were able to demonstrate some of their flair but only in flashes. Still, it was enough to open their try account, courtesy of a typical sidestepping solo run from Nick De Luca, who had moved to inside centre as Edinburgh started to use their bench to rejig the backline.

The problem was they then handed the initiative straight back to their opponents. The home forwards drove into midfield and a neat switch in direction by Keatley set centre Ivan Dineen up for the bonus-point try.

That effectively sealed the result and with both coaches flooding the pitch with replacements, some of the fluidity went from both teams. Munster exploited more defensive misalignment for JJ Hanrahan to cut straight through the middle, and Edinburgh managed the final points of the game with Jones finishing a set-piece move off a line-out.

By then, Edinburgh had been well and truly beaten and for Solomons the message is clear: patching the holes in this team will be a long and tough process.