Last year's AFL season began 15 days after the NRL season, with a potential earlier start hampered by the length of the pre-season NAB Cup and ground availabilities.
The 2014 season, though, will begin a week earlier on March 14 with a clash between Collingwood and Fremantle at Etihad Stadium.
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With the shortening of the NAB Cup to two weeks and making an allowance for the unavailability of the MCG in the first round, McLachlan was adamant it is time for the AFL to not let its rival codes get the jump.
"We are deliberately going early for a couple of reasons," McLachlan said.
"One is to give our players the second bye and in our northern markets the other codes are getting the jump on us up there so we want to go early.
"We just need to have a voice in those moments when who we are competing with for a share of that market is playing - so we need our teams and our game up there playing so we can compete.
"We have invested a lot of money and it makes sense."
However, one advantage the NRL will still have over the AFL in 2014 is Good Friday football, with McLachlan admitting the introduction of the concept in 2015 was 'gathering momentum'.
"(Good Friday) was discussed at the commission level, quite extensively," he said.
"I was just asked before about it in 2015 and I think it's probably a 50-50 bet.
"If we did it in 2015 we would have to be properly prepared and that means a proper respectful consultation with the varied stakeholders of a day that is of religious significance to a lot of people."
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