The Basque outfit had left themselves a lot to do on their home patch after the 30-26 defeat to Treviso in Italy last weekend and needed a bonus point victory to keep their qualification hopes from Pool 5 alive

The Italians started where they left off from last weekend and adapted to the awful wind and rain by using their impressive forward pack to dominated the opening exchanges, with fly-half Kris Burton slotting over the first penalty of the game after seven minutes.

Burton did exactly the same five minutes later to stretch Treviso's lead to 6-0 but the Italian's were soon down to 14-men after flanker Minto was shown the red card for violent play at a ruck by Irish referee Peter Fitzgibbon on the 26^th minute.

Despite Biarritz dominating most of the opening exchanges and being camped in the visitors half , the Italian side stretched their lead with another Burton two penalties towards before his opposite number Julien Peyrelongue made it 12-3 at half-time to Treviso.

After the break, Biarittz, playing with the wind, scored the game's first try when full back Iain Balshaw gathered a kick by centre Damien Traille to cross in the left corner to claw the home side back into the contest.

Peyrelongue added the extras to make it 12-10 to Treviso before the French side started to make their one-man advantage pay and took the lead with a try by replacement scrum half Dane Haylett-Petty only minutes later.

The French side blew a number pf try-scoring chances in the last quarter of the contest until flanker Wenceslas Lauret crashed over to stretch the home side's lead with their third try converted by Peyrelongue.

Hooker Arnaud Heguy then crossed for the Basques fourth try for the all-important bonus point on the 80^th minute to keep the French side in the mix for the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup.