Albury had more scoring shots, but Lavington was clearly the better side in a 9.6 (60) to 4.15 (39) win.

The win continues a strong recent run by the Panthers at the Albury Sportsground fortress, winning by 13 points in 2022 and losing a one-point thriller last year.

And the home side suffered another blow when Morris medallist Elliott Powell was reported during three quarter-time after a skirmish with one of those youngsters in Charlie Sanson late in the third stanza.

"I'm so proud of the way they played, Albury would come at us, but we were able to respond and that's something we might not have been able to do previously," delighted coach Adam Schneider said.

The Panthers have a stack of players under 21, including debutant Ryder Corrigan, who turned 17 only last month and kicked a goal, while setting up two others in the low-scoring game.

"'Schneids' (coach Adam Schneider) gave us a role today (Saturday) and we were able to do that, it was a great team performance," the year 11 school student offered.

Now in his third year as coach, the Sydney Swans' premiership player and former Greater Western Sydney assistant coach again underlined why he's such a tremendous mentor with a superb game plan, focused on pressure.

"We know how quickly they can handball and chain through with the amount of talented mids they have and we brought that pressure game and then tried to score off the back of it," he revealed.

The Panthers will eagerly await the league's official tackle count as they swamped any Tiger with the ball.

There appeared to be Panthers everywhere.

At the 13-minute mark of the final quarter, Albury's Jackson Kelly (two goals) spotted Jay Hillary standing alongside his opponent, but by the time the 40m kick arrived, it was three on one.

Co-captain Tom Hargreave, who played in the flag win over Wangaratta five years ago and debuted in 2011, confirmed it was one of the club's finest wins in that time.

"Absolutely, to be underdogs by that much and have such a young list, I said to the boys, 'we've just got to believe in ourselves' because we matched it against 'Yarra' (Yarrawonga) last week and we showed that belief and took risks," he offered.

For only the third time in the past decade, Albury failed to kick a goal in the first quarter, the previous two against Wangaratta in 2019 and 2022.

The Tigers were missing co-coach Anthony Miles and key forward Jacob Conlan, who was selected for Port Melbourne in the VFL, while the Panthers were without co-captain Jono Spina.

Just a week after having seven staples inserted in his head against Yarrawonga, Lachy Gaffney was poleaxed in a massive collision with Hillary after 10 minutes.

"I had no concussion from last week, but I donned the helmet today (Saturday), with the latest hit I had one foot in the air and didn't know he was there, I got a good one, but it's a hard game, but we love it," he suggested.

Like a number of his team-mates, Gaffney is unfashionable but, just like them, he's fit and prepared to do whatever suits.

Albury kicked its first goal through Kelly after nine minutes of the second quarter and there was no breeze for such an inaccurate display, rather it was a perfect day for football.

The Tigers grabbed the lead for the first first at the three-minute mark of the third term, but only held it for six minutes when another unheralded Lavington player in Sam Hargreave produced a superb tackle on Hamish Gilmore in defence and then calmly slotted an around-the-corner goal on his non-preferred left foot in front of the old scoreboard.

The Panthers never lost the lead and Albury landed only one more goal.

The Panthers could have named 20 players in their best, but Tim Hanna's battle with the league's number one ruck Isaac Muller was enthralling, 42-year-old Adam Butler kept former Hawthorn draftee Mat Walker goalless, Jesse Hart restricted Tigers' forward Kolby Heiner-Hennessy and Sydney Swans' VFL-listed player Ben Ashley-Cooper was relentless in the midfield.

"They were really good around the contest and won the clearance battle, probably to be fair they just wanted it a bit more which is probably the most disappointing thing," Miles explained.

Walker kicked 0.5, while Lachie Tiziani was also goalless, with three behinds.

Gilmore was the Tigers' best, keeping the powerful Tim Oosterhoff to one goal.