Unfancied Waikato FC have taken the early New Zealand Football Championship lead as they shrugged off the effects of the long trip south to beat Otago United 2-0 at Carisbrook.
In the other opening-day clash, Team Wellington made it two for visiting teams by upsetting last season's topdogs, Waitakere United, 2-1 at Fred Taylor Park.
It was storming start for Waikato coach Roger Wilkinson and his team who bore little resemblance to last season's strugglers.
Robert Gill, one of his many newcomers, won and then converted a penalty on the half hour. The job was finished three minutes from time when Gill played a one-two with Jakub Sinkora who put the game beyond doubt just a minute after the home side had squandered a great chance to equalise.
Waitakere stepped up from their dismal midweek effort when they scraped home 1-0 in their O-League win over AS Manu Ura, but were still well below their best in handing new Team Wellington coach Stu Jacobs an opening-day gift.
Former Waitakere player Daniel Ellensohn, from the first serious Wellington attack, opened the scoring after 20 minutes when Matt Cuneen botched what should have been a simple clearance leaving Ellensohn an easy one-on-one with United keeper Simon Eaddy.
United coach Chris Milicich brought Allan Pearce into the game at halftime in his search for width and was rewarded 17 minutes later when Pearce volleyed home from a weak punched clearance from Wellington goalkeeper Phil Imray.
With just two minutes to play and from the seventh corner they forced (Waitakere did not win one), Darren Cheriton fired the ball across to pick out substitute Peter Halstead who got free of Cuneen's supposed challenge to head home for a winning 2-1.
The most disconcerting aspect was the first-up effort of referee Michael Hester who somehow found it necessary to book five players in a game in which even one yellow card might have been deemed harsh.
Team Wellington did well enough but their lack of central defenders - exposed by the need to call Auckland-based veteran Sean Douglas into the squad and then replacing him early in the second spell with regular striker Halstead - might prove costly not too far down the track.
