After taking a quarter and four minutes to score their opening goal, the Hoppers gradually wore down their injury-hit opponents to post a crucial yet unimpressive win.

The victory came at a price with star recruit Damian Cupido being sent off and reported for striking Matt Hooper during the fiery third quarter.

Hodgson said one of the few positives to emerge from the match was the team’s fight after trailing by 23 points at quarter-time.

“Over the last couple of years we would have lost a game like that, but that’s where the improvement is at the moment,” Hodgson said.

“It was an ugly win and I thought it was our worst performance of the year.

“Against Albury we were great for three quarters, but today was pretty average.

“That performance won’t win us too many games of footy when you consider they had Stevens (Kade), Eaton (Brad) and Butler (Adam) out today.”

Lavington was outstanding in the opening quarter with its run and ferocious tackling with goals to Andrew Dess, Marshal Brown, Chris Duck and Chaz Sargeant giving the Panthers a handy buffer.

The Hoppers could only manage four points despite Dan Leslie’s workrate up the ground and Brent Piltz’s creativity across half-back.

North Albury finally opened its account early in the second quarter when Kurt Bradshaw threaded a goal through from the grandstand pocket boundary, but young Panther Luke McNeil responded with a goal from a 50m penalty minutes later.

It soon became clear that the Hoppers were making their move though and majors to Kade Brown (two) and Matt McDonald (two) enabled them to hit the lead for the first time at the 23-minute mark.

Leslie put a string of misses behind him to extend the margin to seven points just before half-time and Lavington was on the backfoot after five successive North Albury goals.

Although the home team closed the gap to five points in the third quarter after some magic from Matt Pendergast, the goals flowed for North Albury.

Leslie was workmanlike rather than brilliant with 16 marks and two goals, Piltz read the ball superbly whether in defence or the ruck, Brown’s zip and five goals were constant concerns for the Panther defence and Joel Price, Kane Godde and Brandon Ryan won plenty of possessions around the midfield.

Lavington coach Tim Sanson said it was disappointing to lose after starting well.

“We couldn’t sustain the effort and paid the price,” Sanson said.

The Panthers had none better than Pendergast who capped off a fine performance with two goals, while John Hunt and Joel Hartley were solid in defence and Chaz Sargeant showed his undisputed talent.