Northern Rangers began their defence of their double championship with a solid win over fellow title contender Riverside Olympic.

Travelling to Windsor Park is just a hop skip and a jump for the club, but the ground holds little in terms of joy for Northern Rangers.  Just two wins for Rangers at Windsor park, and the last one back in 2006.

So to visit Riverside on game one, would require Rangers to be on top of their game from first whistle.

Chris Hunt and Mark Ambrose started on the bench, while Josh van Zetten’s pre-season form was rewarded with a start.

Riverside were at full strength with Robbie Hughes back for the first game since mid February.

The match was intense from start to finish, and both sides knew they were locked in a fierce battle for early season supremacy, and the first half showed that.

Ball movement was slow at times from a Ranger point of view, particularly out of the back four, but the midfield and forward line was a hectic place to be.

Generally Rangers dictated the play in the first half but there were few chances.

Van Zetten was making good runs, and when Stefan Jago made a well timed side way run before being sent through after judging the move perfectly, all thought he was through on goal, however the linesmen flagged for off side.

With scores locked at nil all at half time, something had to give in the second half.

Riverside came out firing in the first 10 minutes, and had Rangers under some pressure, but as has been the case, Rangers converted the pressure and took back control.

A beautiful ball from Stefan Jago across the Riverside back four fell to the back post for Josh van Zetten who slotted the first time effort through a gap smaller than the ball itself between Riversides keepers front post and Joey Simmons himself and Rangers were 1-0 up and looking the goods.

Whitemore introduced Mark Ambrose for Josh van Zetten and he had an immediate impact.

Riverside made a good counter as they had been doing most of the day which called Sam Luck at centre back to make a hard challenge, and Refere deCani adjudged it to be a foul and showed Luck his second yellow for the game with 12 minutes to play.

Whitemore moved Hingston back to centre back where Luck had commanded so well all day and Riverside again made a strong push for an equaliser.

Three strong chances should have gone closer for the home side, but Olner, Guy and Hughes were all unusually off the mark.

Rangers then iced the cake with a well taken one on one from Stefan Jago with 5 to play with 10 men and Rangers ensured their first win of the 2011 season was in round one.

After going from 1999 to 2008 without a win in round one, Rangers have now won each of their first round matches since 2009.

The Reserves also got off to a winning start, overcoming a 1-0 half time deficit to defeat Riverside 3-1.  After an own goal leveld the scores in the opening 10 minutes, Chris Hunt and Tom Burk both scored good goals to give Rangers the win.