Fremantle gun Nat Fyfe has vowed to tweak his approach during the AFL off-season in an effort to avoid future suspensions.

Fyfe was voted the AFL Players Association’s MVP, winning the Leigh Matthews trophy on Tuesday night.

Fyfe polled 945 votes to finish ahead of Gary Ablett (787 votes) and be crowned the AFL’s best player, in the minds of his cohort at least.

The 22-year-old would be among the Brownlow medal favourites, if not for the fact he was twice suspended this season.

Fyfe copped a controversial two-week ban for bumping Michael Rischitelli, but there was far less outrage when he was outed for striking Jordan Lewis and missed the final two rounds of the season.

If the marvellous midfielder tops the Brownlow medal count, it will trigger more calls for the rules governing illegible players to be rejigged.

But Fyfe knows he would only have himself to blame in such a situation.

“The ruling got me on the first one and it was clumsiness with the second one,” Fyfe said of his suspensions after winning the MVP award.

“It’s certainly something I’ll have to look to cancel out of my game a little bit.

“The way I attack the footy, I often do get blokes high. So I’ll do a bit of study in the off-season, because I can’t be sitting on the sidelines.”

Fyfe revealed coach Ross Lyon had a quiet word with him after the second suspension.

“He basically said what I said – that he doesn’t want me to change my attack on the footy,” Fyfe said.

“But the way I go about it just needs to be tinkered slightly, so I don’t give away freekicks and ultimately don’t miss weeks through suspension.”