Terry Wallace is puzzled by Melbourne’s reluctance to address two glaring deficiencies at the selection table.
Speaking on SEN’s The Match Committee, Wallace says the connectivity problem between the midfielders and forwards will continue if players like Harley Bennell and Neville Jetta are left out.
“I don’t think you (Melbourne) will be playing finals this year. That’s only my own opinion,” Wallace said in response to a caller.
“My biggest issue with Melbourne is that if you say you’ve got a connectivity problem week in week out, week in week out, you’ve left out two of your best kickers.
“You’ve got one who has been fantastic for you for the last six years, yes he had a little bit of a dip in form in Neville Jetta, in the back-half of the ground he uses the ball well.
“And then you’ve brought Harley Bennell to your club to fix a few of your forward-end problems and you say he is good enough to be picked for Round 2 but not good enough to be picked for Round 3 and now he’s got issues about his defensive actions.
“He didn’t have those deficiencies from your assessments from Round 1 to Round 2 because you selected him.
“There’s two players who can kick the ball.”
Wallace also can’t understand why Sam Weideman or recruit Mitch Brown aren’t being picked to support Tom McDonald in attack.
“The other part is that you can’t mark the ball inside your forward 50. You go in with one key position player in McDonald,” he said.
“Both Weideman and Brown, different players for different reasons. Weideman was the player that the Melbourne Football Club believed was going to be good enough that they were prepared to let Jesse Hogan go home to fix up the back-half of the ground to make sure that was consolidated.
“If he hasn’t become the player that you want, you went and got Brown to make sure that you had a backup player. You decide to go without either of them.
“How have Weideman and Brown been going in the scratch games? We’ve heard that they’ve been kicking goals in those scratch games. I can’t understand the selection of this side at times.
"Some of the players that are getting games in that team at this moment aren’t good enough for AFL footy."
The Demons, who still have a game in, are the lowest scoring team in the competition, averaging just 49.6 points per game.