West Adelaide launched the new season with a bang, recording a commanding 4-1 victory over Adelaide Olympic in Round 1 of the PlayStation 4 National Premier League South Australia on Friday at Adelaide Shores Football Centre.

Goals in each half from Alex Rideout and Ricardo Da Silva gave the reigning champions a perfect start. Tyler Waterhouse’s second half strike briefly offered Olympic hope, but they finished with 10 men following Sean Brennan’s dismissal.

West Adelaide captain Eli Vlassis says the team can use this match as a foundation for the rest of the campaign.

“We still have a long way to go and we’ll keep working to improve and build, but it was a good start,” he said.

“It was good for the boys to get three points first up. We went out there focused and I thought we played well.

“The individual performances were good and overall it was a fine team effort. We were able to get a few goals too.”

Adelaide Olympic striker Fausto Erba believes the team can take some lessons from the defeat.

“We played a tough game against the champions and at times we played well,” he said.

“At 2-1 we pushed and had West Adelaide in some difficulty, but unfortunately it was not enough. They are a good team.

“We made too many mistakes due to inexperience and against teams like this you can’t do that or they will punish you.

“We have to go forward with the reaction showed in the second half, and the determination we showed all game. If we do that we can do well in the future.”

Da Silva’s seventh minute switch found Rideout and the winger cut inside from the right to drill a low shot past Jackson O’Donnell.

The Portuguese then scored a stunning goal. Starting just inside the Olympic half, he exchanged passes with John Karatzas and burst through the defence before unleashing an arrow into the bottom corner.

Erba’s free kick forced a save from Lewis Moss, as Olympic looked for a way back into the contest.

The newly promoted side did reduce the deficit just prior to the hour mark. Erba went around Moss and squared the ball for Waterhouse to tap into an empty net.

But West steadied to restore its two-goal advantage with 20 minutes left. Rideout and Hikaru Tanaka combined, with the No 9 squeezing his shot past goalkeeper O’Donnell.

The points were then made safe as Ryan James played the ball through for Da Silva on the counter attack and he grabbed his second of evening.

Tanaka had a chance to further rub salt into the wound after Tom Briscoe’s pass, but was denied by O’Donnell.

Olympic’s evening was compounded in the final moments as Brennan was sent off for a second bookable offence.

Written by Luca Cetta - @l_cetta