Matthew Priddis’ two votes in the final round of the AFL’s Brownlow Medal count allowed the West Coast midfielder to overtake the ineligible Nat Fyfe as the highest vote-getter.

Fyfe was ineligible because of two suspensions, one for a controversial bump in round two, which many experts felt was not worthy of a ban, and one for a strike in round 21.

Media commentators said on Tuesday the fact Priddis polled 26 votes to pass Fremantle’s Fyfe on 25 in the last round had saved the AFL from embarrassment.

Fyfe almost joined North Melbourne’s Corey McKernan (1996) and Western Bulldogs’ Chris Grant (1997) as ineligible “winners”.

The AFL’s football operations boss Mark Evans has suggested possible changes to the match-review panel for 2015, including fines for lower-end incidents rather than suspensions.

Speaking at a media conference about ticket scalping for Saturday’s grand final at the MCG, Evans said Priddis richly deserved his victory.

“Matthew Priddis was an outstanding winner last night of the Brownlow Medal, a very deserved winner,” Evans said.

“The way he spoke afterwards, I don’t think his family or his club or the AFL could be more proud of a person the way they conducted themselves after winning the Brownlow Medal.

“The match review panel has been reviewed for the past 18 months.

“When we get post-season, and not before then, we have collected a group of industry experts to sit down and look at some vision to see where we want to take that.”