After in-form Pigeons co-coach Brendan Fevola marked and goalled in the opening minute, the two heavyweights traded blows in a high pressure scoreless battle for the next 10 minutes.

But when Andrew Dess marked and kicked his only goal with 11.20 on the clock, the Panthers opened the floodgates, with Adam Prior, Mitch Palmer, Justin Koschitzke and Sam Harris following in quick succession to set up a 25-point lead at quarter-time that never looked like being headed.

Yarrawonga got back within 17 points midway through the second term, but Lavington were able to steady to lead by 29 at the main break before easing to a 13.6 (84) to 6.6 (42) victory in dewy conditions.

The visitors, already missing superstar midfielder Craig Ednie, alongside co-coach Drew Barnes, Matt Dwyer, Steve McKee, Marcus Cummins and Finley recruit Jordan Daniel (knee), lost Matt Irvine (quad) and Ricky Barnes (groin) in the first term, while Kayne Pettifer suffered a knock to the knee early on and was a non-factor, finishing the game on the bench.

While Lavington was well below full-strength itself, with Matt Pendergast, Kade Stevens, Sam Hargreave, Myles Aalbers, Zach Hopper and youngster Jack Harland on the sidelines, the Panthers only issue was Adam Butler, who suffered a hamstring twinge and is likely to join the casualty ward.

Lavington’s height up forward proved the biggest factor, with Prior (five goals) and Koschitzke (four) proving damaging, despite the best efforts of a gutsy defence led by Beau Seymour, Bronson Schofield and Logan Morey.

At the other end, Fevola did not get another shot on goal against James Saker, but the Lavington coach’s job was made much easier by the performances up the ground of best on ground Palmer, while Brant Dickson, Tom Yensch and Jack Nunn were also outstanding.

Fevola, in fact, spent the last quarter in the ruck, matching it with Jamarl O’Sullivan — and even kicked in from full back once.

“I thought we weathered the storm early and managed to get on top through the middle — we were just a bit cleaner going forward than last week and were able to get some scoreboard pressure on them,” Saker said.

“Conditions weren’t conducive to free-flowing football, but our group adapted well, played pretty basic footy and executed some game plans that worked.

“The movement was much better than last week and we gave them (our forwards) a shot — there’s a fair bit of calibre down there and we thought we had an advantage in height and we were able to exploit that.”

Saker said last year’s preliminary final fadeout against the Pigeons wasn’t considered when they built a similar third-quarter lead, and was delighted with the workrate of Palmer and Yensch in particular.

Barnes, meanwhile, was able to see plenty of positives, headed by the effort of Matt Gorman in shutting down Panther recruit Matt Sharp, and was philosophical about the club’s injury woes.

“I still thought our back six played quite well, to hold them to 13 goals I thought was good – we aim to keep teams to a low scoring rate and I think we were pretty good considering.”