Olympic came out attacking in front of its home crowd at O'Connor Enclosed. It created a number of early chances, peppering the goals but wasn't able to get past Woden keeper, Evan Alexandrow-Ridley.

The visitors had limited opportunities in the half but made the most of them, converting in the 25th minute through Simon Hinde whose foot skills were sublime.

Just a minute later, Pete Marlette found himself running in to a one-on-one contest with Olympic keeper James Bradbury. A leaping Bradbury got a hand to the ball, but it just managed to sneak under the cross bar.

Marlette and Nick Hamilton have joined Woden from the United States after playing college soccer in their homeland. The pair were identified to come to the Capital on a ''football exchange''.

''What they allow us to do is substantially strengthen our squad, knowing that we have a very young team, and build around the little bit of experience that they bring for us,'' Woden coach Pat McCann said.

Clearly it has worked. With Woden up 2-0, it raised its defensive pressure, leaving Olympic to make some poor decisions in front of goal.

''We may have got a little bit frustrated and not so much lacked imagination, because we broke them down often enough,'' Olympic coach Dean Ugrinic said after the match.

''Maybe it was just that we lack the cutting edge at the moment - lacked that final path, that decisive finish, and to be fair the Woden goalkeeper was outstanding.''

The result left McCann pleased with his young side's execution of the game plan.

''After the last couple of weeks, we've identified where some of the deficiencies with us existed,'' McCann said.

''We've solved some of those problems and I think today we saw the benefit.''

Meanwhile, the top of the table clash between Canberra FC and Belconnen United was won in the 88th minute by a goal from Belconnen's Misko Naumoski to take the home side to a 5-4 win, its first over Canberra FC since the 2008 grand final.