West Sydney made a winning start to the 2003-04 National Basketball League season on Saturday night defeating the Hunter Pirates but it was far from the easy victory most had anticipated against the wooden spoon favourites.

While the Razorbacks are playing without an import this season, they were still expected to have far too much class for the first-year Pirates.

But West Sydney rarely looked at ease at the State Sports Centre, emerging with a hard-fought 119-103 victory.

While most have already written off the Pirates' prospects this season, Razorbacks coach Gordie McLeod was pleased just to start the year with a win.

"The first game's always a good one to get out of the way," he said.

"We knew it was going to be a tough contest for us and we knew they were going to come out better than they played on Wednesday night."

The Pirates opened their season with a disappointing 105-77 loss to Melbourne at home and with few topline Australian free agents available to them in the off-season, sheer work ethic will define their year.

But it was the Pigs who took an early 10-0 lead with Simon Dwight, who played just 11 games in an injury-plagued 2003 season indicating he could be set for a strong year, notching nine points and four rebounds in the first quarter.

Scott McGregor was also active early, hitting three field goals in the opening term as West Sydney enjoyed a 30-21 advantage at the first break.

Hunter imports Kevin Brooks and Chris Brown, who must carry much of the offensive load this season, had just two field goal attempts and no points between them for the quarter.

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