But some late scrambling forced Nine's MC James Bracey to read out Wighton's name instead.

Meninga, Laurie Daley and Darren Lockyer voted on the award, and while Waerea-Hargreaves polled well, Lockyer's vote did not arrive until the last minute because of problems with the app.

"I wasn't aware of that [mix-up] until five minutes ago,'' said Meninga, as he read out his Kangaroos team on Monday morning.

"From my point of view it's done in a safe and secure way, we do it through an app, and it's all personalised, so I don't know what went on.''

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Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Beattie said: "There's a process, the process was going on and the person who won was frankly the one who should have won.

"The vote was being counted, there were some people who thought they knew what was going on who didn't, that's the bottom line.

"When all the votes were counted Jack had won.

"In this game you can't keep a secret, everyone wants to know who it is, everyone gets excited, 'who's going to win the Clive Churchill Medal?' The fact is Jack won.''

Wighton was grateful to win the honour but gutted the Raiders had lost.

There were dramas with voting for the Wally Lewis Medal during last year's when Billy Slater pipped James Tedesco for the award. But this time around there were no problems with the winner.

Waerea-Hargreaves was delighted with the victory and said the best word to describe his feeling was ''speechless''.