Attendance 36,145
Manager Walter Smith fielded an unchanged side for the third successive game as Rangers faced opposition from Montenegro for the very first time.
Rangers should have opened the scoring inside the opening ten seconds when Kris Boyd, through on a Lee McCulloch pass, somehow contrived to misshit his effort against an upright. It was a bad miss - but the Ibrox men continued to pour forward, and with no more than two minutes on the clock Charlie Adam's wide-angled twenty-yard drive was diverted wide of the target by Boyd.
It was one-way traffic - Adam's header from Hutton's cross in eighteen minutes being touched over by goalkeeper Sasa Ivanovic.
Two minutes later Jean-Claude Darchville's angled drive was beaten away by Ivanovic.
The lack of a breakthrough saw a nervousness creep into both the home side's play and the 36,145 crowd - even more so in 38 minutes when Darko Markovic's 22-yard free-kick flashed inches wide of the target, then three minutes on when Bojan Ivanovic rifled a shot across the face of goal.
Rangers were stirred into the action - Lee McCulloch seeing a powerful thirty-yard drive turned wide by Ivanovic, but the half ended goalless and as the players left the field boos rang out from sections of the crowd.
Nacho Novo replaced Adam at the interval - and within three minutes the little Spaniard created space on the right before squaring for Barry Ferguson whose twenty-yard drive was parried by Ivanovic, the loose ball falling to Boyd who somehow lashed the ball over the bar.
An erratic Greek referee was constantly being hoodwinked by the Zeta players into awarding free-kicks in dangerous positions - and from one such effort in 53 minutes Marko Cetkovic saw his 23-yard effort held by Allan McGregor.
To immense relief the opening goal arrived sixty seconds later when David Weir's chip somehow found its' way into the net with Darchville, in attempting
to prod the ball home, distracting the Zeta goalkeeper.
It was the defender's first goal for the club, and it could scarcely have been more valuable.
Within five minutes however Rangers were reduced to ten men when Hutton was firstly yellow-carded for dissent following an innocuous tackle on Zarko Korac, then ludicrously received a second yellow and subsequent red for charging out of the wall to block Janko Tumbasevic's free-kick.
Walter Smith almost immediately replaced the ineffective Boyd with Kirk Broadfoot - but despite the numerical disadvantage Rangers were still searching for a second goal, and might have snatched it in 63 minutes when Darchville burrowed through only to see his eighteen-yard drive held by Ivanovic.
The Montenegron goalkeeper also denied McCulloch seven minutes later when he parried a 25-yard drive, but the former Wigan player would not be denied - opening the scoring in 72 minutes with a header from a Ferguson
free-kick.
Filip Sebo replaced Darchville ten minutes later - and might have notched a potentially crucial third goal at the death when his shot on the turn following a quickly-taken Ferguson free-kick was held by Ivanovic.
Afterwards Walter Smith summarised:
"I was happy at 2-0, although we could have doubled our score. It was a strange type of game. The lack of away goals was vital. We started the game really well, then got frustrated. Zeta are a good team with one or two really good players. Any club from the former Yugoslavia are no minnows, contrary to what many in Scotland believe."
Zeta Coach Slob odan Halilolic reflected:
"We played very well, but lost two easy goals. We can score in Podgorica, but Rangers have the advantage."
So now it's on to Podgorica - or Titograd as it was formerly known.
RANGERS McGregor; Hutton, Weir, Cuellar, Papac; McCulloch, Ferguson, Hemdani, Adam (Novo 45); Boyd (Broadfoot 62), Darcheville (Sebo 82)
UNUSED SUBS Carroll, Webster, Thomson, Beasley
ZETA S. Ivanovic; Igumanovic, Cetkovic (Bolevic 82), B. Ivanovic, Kaluderovic; Markovic, Tumbasevic, Radulovic (Djurovic 75), Vuckovic; Korac, Stjepanovic
UNUSED SUBS Mustur, Marinkovic, V. Pelicic, Z. Pelicic, Culafic
REFEREE Georgis Kasnaferis (Greece)