Edinburgh drowned in a sea of Parisian pink after suffering a heavy defeat at the hands of Stade Francais on Saturday afternoon with the home side scoring four tries during a one-sided first half.

Ben Cairns scored a late consolation try after combining well with replacement Nick De Luca and Phil Godman nailed the subsequent conversion to marginally lift the gloom.

Over a hundred Edinburgh supporters made the trip across the channel and afterwards head coach Rob Moffat praised them for their backing.

Moffat said: "We cannot afford to make silly mistakes like we did against Stade in the first half because quality teams will punish us. I would like to thank the Edinburgh fans for the support they gave the team."

If the first half was showing was the season's nadir then the latter stages of the second half saw Edinburgh finally click into place and the men in Red could have scored a further two tries with De Luca impressing.

But unfortunately by that time it was a case of too little, too late against one of the major forces in European rugby.

During a horribly disjointed first half, Edinburgh's attack kept on getting clogged up at the gainline. Some enterprising line breaks then did not lead to tries because, frustratingly, Edinburgh were repeatedly penalised for not releasing the ball.

Edinburgh were unable to put together a perfect passage of play with mistakes around the breakdown and handling errors costing the away side any sense of momentum or go-forward.

At times, Edinburgh looked lively going forward with Mike Blair and Tim Visser producing incisive breaks, but the shortage of support led to the attacks dissolving.

In glorious Parisian sunshine, Edinburgh kicked off their European adventure against the most colourful team in rugby, Stade Francais.

Wearing red, Edinburgh started with the sun in their eyes and Godman fielded two testing up-and-unders while under pressure from a horde of chasing Stade players.

But the good early work was undone by a simple mistake – a quick turnover followed by a missed tackle on the touchline enabled Julien Arias to race through unchecked to score and Julien Depuy added the conversion.

Surging forward, Stade Francais burst through on their next attack and Sergio Parisse, flanked by two team-mates, clambered over the whitewash to score.

Overpowered and outnumbered, Chris Paterson stood little chance of stopping the Italian juggernaut as he hurtled through to score.

As a result, Edinburgh found themselves 14-0 down inside the opening 12 minutes – a huge mountain to climb.

Without any gaps appearing in the Stade defence, Edinburgh were trying to create something in cramped surroundings, but an enterprising break from John Houston paved the way forward.

But Stade soon got back to their best and Pascal Pape broke the line at speed before dotting down under the posts.

Before the half-hour mark, Stade exploited a poor piece of play by Edinburgh and raced up the pitch to score comfortably through Lionel Beauxis.

Julien Depuy added his fourth straightforward conversion of the game – to compound Edinburgh’s misery.

Stade looked strong in contact and managed to get their off-loads away to team-mates with precision. Sadly Edinburgh's collective accuracy levels were way below the accepted standard and the team realise that improvements must be made ahead of the Ulster match.

Edinburgh: Chris Paterson, Mark Robertson, Ben Cairns, John Houston, Tim Visser, Phil Godman, Mike Blair (capt), Allan Jacobsen, Ross Ford, Geoff Cross, Craig Hamilton, Scott MacLeod, Alan MacDonald, Roddy Grant, Allister Hogg.

Replacements: Andrew Kelly, Kyle Traynor (for Jacobsen), Ryan Grant (for Cross), Steven Turnbull (for Hamilton), Scott Newlands (for Hogg), Greig Laidlaw (for Blair), Nick De Luca (for Houston), Steve Jones (for Paterson).

Stade Francais Paris: Hugo Southwell; Julien Arias, Guillaume Bousses, Geoffroy Messina, Mark Gasnier; Lionel Beauxis, Julien Dupuy; Rodrigo Roncero, Dimitri Szarzewski, Sylvain Marconnet, Tom Palmer, Pascal Pape, James Haskell, Antoine Burban, Sergio Parisse

Replacements: Mathieu Blin, Damien Weber, David Attoub, Arnaud Marchois, Benjamin Kayser, Noel Oelschig, Mirco Bergamasco, Ollie Phillips

Attendance: 10,000