There were two tries from American speedster Taku Ngwenya among a haul of six for the home side in a game that saw four yellow cards dished out by English referee Tom Foley. The Russians picked up three of them and Brive one.

Having taken the lead with a third minute penalty from Iurii Kushnarev, the visitors then lost Mikheil Gachechiladze to the sin-bin three minutes later. While he was off, Benito Masilevu crossed for the first of home tries and Thomas Laranjeira added the extras.

South African lock Johan Snyman was next to score midway thorugh the first-half, Laranjeira again hitting the target with his conversion, before Ramil Gaisin became the second Enisei player to see yellow. A minute later, No 8 Sisa Koyamaibole extended the lead with try No 3.

Laranjeira’s conversion made it 21-3 before Kushnarev made up for an earlier miss by adding a second penalty. That made it a 15 point gap at the break, although Brive lost Wilhelm Steenkamp to a yellow card a minute before half-time.

Not to be outdone, Enisei picked up a third yellow nine minutes into the second half. This time it was Viacheslav Krasylnyk who left the field and two minutes later Ngwenya crossed for the first of his brace of tries.

That earned Brive the bonus point and no sooner had they achieved that goal than they began to ring the changes. Enisei hit back with two tries from Shamil Magomedov, but Ngwenya’s second and a final score from Julien Le Devedec made it a good night’s work for the home side.