McKernan has said in an interview that the $1000 fine issued to Fremantle's Brownlow favourite Nat Fyfe for tripping Western Bulldogs player Koby Stevens had left him miffed. "It is quite interesting, that for a hell of a lot of years, I did have the same opinion but I think if you look at the facts of how we're actually going to vote for the award, I think they have changed," McKernan told Channel Nine. "Over summer we changed the rules in how you win one of the best awards in the land, I think everyone sees that. "I know to be suspended you can't win it, if we're going to go down the path of actually lower level type incidents, it opens up Pandora's Box in my eyes." McKernan said it was the first time since he missed out on the Brownlow that the goalposts surrounding the award had shifted.

"I think for a hell of a long time, a week was a week, we all knew that. "I was the biggest spokesperson of going 'you know what, (the) Brownlow, that's their rules'. "It does really seem to me now the rules have changed, it's different. "We all agree the incident with Nat Fyfe, like I keep saying it's great he gets off but in terms of where you stop with those trivial incidents, in my eyes it seems you've changed the nature of how you interpret the award." However McLachlan didn't think there was any merit in what the former Kangaroo and Blue said.

"No I don't think so, because the rules of the day were applied to Corey. They were rules," McLachlan told ABC radio on Friday morning. He believed that the decision had been correctly applied, and had come about as a result of the positive work done by AFL football operations boss Mark Evans in tinkering with the match review panel system. "We seem to have a situation with Nat Fyfe where I think Mark Evans last year worked through some really sensible and pragmatic changes to the MRP, and I think it's working well this year. "I think broadly, everyone feels it was the right outcome where I think the level of force meant Fyfe wasn't suspended, and is eligible. "I think if Nat Fyfe would have been suspended, which probably would have happened under last year's rules, we probably would have had cars on fire outside AFL house."