On a hard and flat pitch, Reivers set out to play in a expansive style, but enjoyed limited success in the scrappy opening exchanges.

Centre Ben MacDougall marked his return to action after a broken cheekbone by embarking on a powerful sprint out of his own danger zone.

Simon Danielli continued the surge which led to a series of penalties. Initially, the Borders went all out for the try but after three attempts they resorted to the boot of skipper Calum MacRae and he safely claimed three points.

Their own adventurous approach directly from the restart allowed Parma to grab the initiative by pouncing for the first touchdown.

MacDougall knocked on after failing to latch on to a dreadful pass by Nick De Luca, the ball bouncing perfectly for the Italians.

And, with the defence committed, full-back Arthur Little darted through to reach a chip a matter of inches before it could run out of play.

The visitors were almost caught on the hop a few minutes later when winger Ricardo Pavan was quickest to react to another lob.

He claimed the score, but to the intense relief of the visitors the referee ruled that the ball had trickled out of play before he had got to it.

There was no let-off for the Borders midway through the half when French referee Romaine Poite awarded Parma a controversial penalty try for twisting the scrum, having not issued any warnings. Alejandro Canale added the easy conversion.

Reivers' shortcomings were underlined when Gregor Townsend could not find touch with a penalty close to the line and they had to resort to another goal from MacRae to get their side of the scoreboard clicking again.

Borders were then hit by a string of mishaps before the interval. De Luca was lucky to only be yellow-carded for a blatantly late challenge on scrum-half Jose Pellicena with Canale banging over the resulting penalty.

Even worse was to come, particularly for Townsend who was appearing on the European stage for the last time before his retirement.

He attempted to find Danielli with an ambitious long pass but Little intercepted and cruised 90 metres for his second try. Canale made it a seven-pointer to leave the Reivers floundering.

Borders focussed on keeping things much tighter after the restart and the more cautious attitude earned them two tries in quick succession to get back into the contest.

With the home side a man down due to a sin-binning, John Dalziel battled his way over the line following a tapped Rob Chrystie penalty.

Then de Luca exploited a gap after a clever feed from Townsend. MacRae stroked over both conversions, only to see Canale claim three points at the other end from his second penalty to make the lead five points.

The frantic action continued until the last whistle. MacRae pulled back three points before the Reivers were handed their penalty try at the end of a run by Danielli.

And referee Poite completed his bizarre treble when he decided the Borders had illegally halted Parma's rolling maul.

The pace of the match never looked like decreasing and in the last 10 minutes substitute Nicola Mazzucato went over for Parma's fifth touchdown, goaled by Riccardo Robuschi.

Opeta Palepoi's reply, converted by MacRae, gave the Reivers fresh hope but two late penalties from Robuschi snuffed out their challenge.

The scorers:

For Overmach Parma:
Tries: Penalty Try 2, Little 2, Mazzucato
Cons: Canale 2, Robuschi 2
Pens: Canale 2, Robuschi 2

For Border Reivers:
Tries: Penalty Try, De Luca, Dalziel, Palepoi
Cons: MacRae 4
Pens: MacRae 3

The teams:

Overmach Parma: 15 Arthur Little, 14 Riccardo Robuschi, 13 Andrea Orsi, 12 Alessandro Chillon, 11 Riccardo Pavan, 10 Alejandro Canale, 9 José Pellicena (c), 1 German Fontana, 2 Bruno Masetti, 3 Tino Paoletti, 4 Federico Minello, 5 Luke Tait, 6 Robert Barbieri, 7 Liviu Pascu, 8 Manoa Vosawai
Replacements: 16 Michael Barbieri, 17 Ludovic Zanini, 18 Fabio Staibano, 19 Dan Guiness, 20 Alberto De Marchi, 21 Nicola Mazzucato, 22 Giovanni Ghidini

Borders: 15 Calum MacRae, 14 Simon Danielli, 13 Nick De Luca, 12 Ben MacDougall, 11 Dougie Flockhart, 10 Gregor Townsend, 9 Rob Chrystie, 8 Kelly Brown, 7 Andy Miller, 6 Scott Newlands, 5 Opeta Palepoi, 4 John Dalziel, 3 Bruce Douglas, 2 Steve Scott, 1 Ryan Grant.
Replacements: 16 Ross Ford, 17Ed Kalman, 18 Richie Vernon, 19 Roddy Grant, 20 Brendan McKerchar, 21 Steve Jones, 22 Garry Law.

Referee: Romain Poite (France)
Touch judges: Bernard Dal Maso (France), Cédric Marchet (France)
Commissioner: Matthew Lohn (England)