Wallace said the final decision would rest with the match committee but that Bowden was starting to regain confidence playing for Coburg in the VFL.
"He played very well at VFL level and needed to do that," Wallace said. "Joel was lacking in a bit of confidence. He wasn’t playing good football. Sometimes going back to a lower level gets your confidence up and you’re not second-guessing yourself.
"He wasn’t the only one, we omitted three players from the side last week. Of the four that didn’t play last weekend, all four had zero tackles in the game against Collingwood."
Wallace said Bowden’s form had been an issue since before the home and away season.
"You guys look at it after three weeks, we look at it from seven or eight weeks in the lead-up practice matches and NAB series along the way and Joel hadn’t been in good form," he said.
"If blokes want to compete and play at the levels we think they should, they will play senior footy. If they don’t want to compete, it doesn’t matter if it’s a first-gamer or a 200-gamer, we need that in our line-up.
"I don’t ever go public on what we’re doing in relation to selection. We’ll discuss who did what at senior level, [and Bowden] was certainly in the better players at VFL level."
The Tigers coach said media criticism of the team leading up to the match was unwarranted and manufactured.
"I don’t have any hesitation saying the biggest change from a media perspective in the last five years is that five years ago the media wrote about the stories coming out of football," he said. "Now I think the media create the stories.
"If the media believe they can put pressure on somebody to put pressure on a club they will do that because it makes greater stories for them.
"I think they’re creating the story. They’re not waiting for the story to happen. Personally I think there is [something wrong with it]. I think it takes it a step too far but that’s the industry we’re in. It’s not going to stop rolling on. It’s a massive change."
