Durban - Manning Rangers registered their biggest win of the season at Chatsworth Stadium on Friday night when they thrashed Qwa Qwa Stars 7-2 to bring the curtain down on their Castle Premier League season.

The half-time score was 4-1 to Rangers. A torrential rain storm soon after the restart forced referee Ian McLeod to halt the game for nearly 10 minutes until it had passed.

The result moves Rangers back into third place on the log above Orlando Pirates, but Pirates should have the measure of bottom-of-the-log side Vaal Professionals on Saturday in their last game to claim the bronze medals.

Both Rangers and Stars played out the second half with 10 men with Liswa Nduti of Rangers collecting two yellow cards and an automatic red while Sipho Khuse of Stars was sent off for an innocuous tackle on Mxolisi Mchunu that barely deserved a caution.

Stars' coach Peter Nyama was most unhappy that all four officials appointed to the game were local and voiced his dissatisfaction at McLeod's performance.

But Rangers were by far the better team on the night and had not goalkeeper Grant Johnson and striker Gilbert Mushangazhike both missed spot kicks the margin of victory would have been even higher.

The ever alert Mushangazhike scored a delightful hat-trick and Solo Ndimande got two, giving them both a tally of 12 league goals for the season.

Rangers' other goals were scored by Mchunu and Bradley Muir while opportunist Bunene Ngaduane bagged both for Stars, one from a penalty kick.

It was surprising that Nyama only replaced first choice goalkeeper Jeremiah Mathibela 10 minutes into the second half with the score at 6-1.

He was obviously a big part of the problem in the Stars' defence and substitute Matthews Setholo helped to stem the flood of goals.

Rangers' coach Gordon Igesund said he was never so happy to see the end of a season and was looking forward to a total break from the game.

But an announcement is expected from him soon as to which players he will place on the transfer list and which names are at the top of his shopping list. - Sapa