Melbourne superstar Christian Petracca's linking of low crowds to the Demons' struggling performances has been labelled 'pathetic' by Channel Nine's Caroline Wilson.
The reigning premiers won their first 10 games of the season before limping to two consecutive defeats at the MCG - against Fremantle and Sydney.
Despite Melbourne's recent success, their crowds have struggled to build this season, with only 32,000 attending Saturday night's Swans match, while only 29,000 saw the defeat to the Dockers at the home of football.
“When you come out and only see really 30,000 there.
“It’s Saturday arvo, Saturday night. We played (at) 4.30pm last week against Freo (29,812 crowd), that’s not a great time for a Saturday night game.
“It’s just too cold at the moment, I don’t think people want to come. I find our age demographic for our fans is still quite older.”
On Monday night's episode of Footy Classified, Wilson criticised Petracca for a 'pathetic excuse' on why Melbourne's supporters aren't showing up to games - citing the crowd at Collingwood vs. Carlton in round 11.
“Come on Christian, that’s a really pathetic excuse,” Wilson said.
“That game, Saturday night game there was 15,000 Sydney fans there according to people I know at the game.
“So Melbourne supporters didn’t even turn up, nor did they turn up for the top of the table clash the week before, 29,000.
“These are terribly disappointing crowds, the premiership rematch in Round 1, the AFL was talking 70-75,000… (they) couldn’t even get 60,000.
“Why are the Melbourne supporters not turning up? For Christian Petracca to have to blame the weather, it didn’t worry the Carlton and Collingwood fans (80,627 crowd) the previous week.”
