The Age’s Caroline Wilson has criticised Demons star Christian Petracca for his comments on Melbourne’s lacklustre crowd numbers this year.
Despite being the reigning premiers, Melbourne has averaged 33,717 patrons to each game, ranking fifth for clubs across the competition.
After only 32,753 fans turned up for the Demons’ Round 12 clash with Sydney, Petracca fielded questions about the situation on Monday morning.
“We need a crowd first to actually get ourselves going, no one comes,” he told KIIS 101.1
“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.”
Richmond, Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon all have average crowds of at least 7,000 more fans than Melbourne this year.
"Come on Christian, that is a really pathetic excuse."
— Footy on Nine (@FootyonNine) June 6, 2022
Christian Petracca's clip for Demons fans raised eyebrows, but why aren't the reigning premiers drawing a crowd?#9FootyClassified | @Channel9 pic.twitter.com/O9ak1Xq9cX
Wilson, speaking on Nine’s Footy Classified, wasn’t accepting the weather as a worthy excuse for the numbers.
“Come on Christian, that’s a really pathetic excuse,” she said in response to the comments.
“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 the previous week.”
A total of 80,627 fans flocked to the MCG to watch Collingwood’s narrow win over the Blues the week prior.
Melbourne has another opportunity to attract a big crowd in Round 13, clashing with Collingwood in the annual Queen’s Birthday game at the MCG on Monday.