Keith Earls scored twice as the Irish ran in nine tries with Fergus McFadden, Sean O'Brien, Isaac Boss, Andrew Trimble, Rob Kearney, Shane Jennings and Tony Buckley also crossing.

The bonus-point success ensured the Irish put one foot into the quarter-finals and left Kidney purring.

“We went asleep in the middle of both halves but we are delighted with the win and to score nine tries,” he said.

“We knew they would come at us - we had to go strong at the start of the first half and we did that.

“Sometimes we made hard work for ourselves but the Russian defence is stoic and they scored two good tries.”

Russia showed their skills with two second-half tries but Ireland skipper Leo Cullen wasn’t concerned with the defence being breached.

“We tried a few different combinations this week,” said Cullen.

“Russia posed us a lot of problems, particularly in the second half obviously getting two tries. But we'll take the win, move on and obviously reassess now as the week goes on.

“A few guys got opportunities this week to kind of back up the performance of last weekend and it was important we carried on the momentum.

“It's great so many people turned out, the support has been phenomenal everywhere we have been.”