FORMER North Melbourne star Corey McKernan has sympathy for Geelong superstar Patrick Dangerfield after he was ruled ineligible to win this year's Brownlow medal.

But McKernan says that if Dangerfield and Geelong can achieve the ultimate team success by winning this year's premiership, the blow of potentially losing the Brownlow will be lessened.

Dangerfield could end up in the same position as McKernan in 1996, when the Kangaroos big man finished on the same number of votes as joint Brownlow winners James Hird and Michael Voss.

However, McKernan was ineligible for the award due to a one-match suspension for kneeing Geelong ruckman John Barnes.

"I sincerely hope for 'Danger' that he gets the same result as what I was lucky enough to do in 1996," McKernan told Fairfax Media.

"You go, 'OK you lost it. Who cares?' And you just move on and hopefully you get a premiership medallion that he highly craves, and hopefully that's a bit of karma that comes his way.

"I was in a fortunate position that year that we had much bigger things to look forward to, and I think 'Danger' would be thinking the same thing."

Dangerfield, the reigning Brownlow medallist, will not have the chance to be a back-to-back winner after he accepted a one-match ban for a tackle that left Carlton's Matthew Kreuzer concussed.

Geelong debated whether to challenge the suspension, but had Dangerfield been unsuccessful he would have had another week added to his stint on the sidelines and missed games against Sydney and Richmond.

"It [Dangerfield's suspension] has actually revived good memories,  because I didn't really care about it that much because all I was focusing on was winning the premiership," McKernan said.

"It never really affected me, I didn't let it affect me ... that whole week, the way I handled Grand Final week is one of the best things that I've ever done. 

"It bothers everyone else more than me."