Albirex Niigata (S) made a good start to their Singapore League Cup defence as they easily dispatched a depleted Home United side 2-0 at Bishan Stadium on Thursday night.
Goals from Tatsuro Inui and Hiroyoshi Kamata in each half proved to be enough for the holders to top Group B, with Balestier Khalsa and Geylang International drawing 2-2 in the other game.
Missing several players due to injuries and international duty, Home had to put out a makeshift side who struggled against a full-strength Albirex outfit.
The Protectors failed to create many openings in the first half, except for a delightful Shamil Sharif ball over the top for Ken Ilso in the 38th minute. However, the Danish forward was foiled by the onrushing Albirex goalkeeper Yosuke Nozawa before he could get the vital touch.
Six minutes earlier, Albirex had broken the deadlock when Inui calmly side-footed from 10 yards out after being picked out by Kamata's cutback from the right.
The White Swans continued to dominate proceedings in the second half, with captain Naofumi Tanaka and substitute Kazuki Mine forcing decent saves from Home custodian Hyrulnizam Juma'at.
It was no surprise that Naoki Naruo's side eventually doubled their advantage on 69 minutes. Giant forward Mine superbly knocked down Tanaka's cross into the path of Kamata, who finished unerringly into the bottom right corner from close range.
Mine then had another two chances to score himself late on, but he was twice denied by the heroics of Hyrulnizam.
Despite the straightforward win, Naruo believes there is still room for improvement if his side are to lift the League Cup for a second successive year.
"We allowed Home to counter-attack on a few occasions, so we have to improve more," said the Albirex coach. "I also felt we could have scored more goals today.
"Today we put on No. 15 [Tadaaki Yazawa] who hasn't played a lot in the S.League and he did quite well. He's one of the new options for us and we want to challenge the reserve players in this competition."
Meanwhile, Home counterpart Philippe Aw believed his side did not fare badly considering their many key absences.
"Looking at the players who've missed out today, we could have formed a first 11," he lamented. "We had four players with the Singapore national team and six players with the Under-21s.
"But end of the day, we took it positively because we wanted to support the national cause. We knew the circumstances and we did quite well today, especially 19-year-old Lionel in central defence.
"The first goal could have been prevented; we got hit in transition after losing possession in midfield. We could have broken it down, but we allowed them to come. Otherwise we were quite organised in defence tonight."
Home United: Hyrulnizam Juma'at (GK), Juma'at Jantan (C), Lionel Tan (Syahiran Miswan 72'), Sim Teck Yi, Redzwan Atan, Aqhari Abdullah, Haziq Azman, Shamil Sharif, Ambroise Begue (Yeo Hai Ngee 83'), Sufianto Salleh (Song Uiyoung 59'), Ken Ilso
Albirex Niigata (S): Yosuke Nozawa (GK), Mikiya Yamada, Atsushi Shirota, Kento Fujihara, Tadaaki Yazawa, Shuto Inaba, Kento Nagasaki (Masaya Jitozono 58'), Naofumi Tanaka (C), Tatsuro Inui (Kazuki Mine 58'), Hiroyoshi Kamata, Atsushi Kawata (Rui Kumada 81')