Okay, let's trade for two more shorter guys who may be very good players.
Next year we will still be howling from the rooftops (like we have been since SOS & Sticks retired) about our inability or reluctance to find quality key position players.
Get the goddam spine right first & foremost and the rest will fall into place very easily around them.
It's incredibly ignorant to think that sorting out our spine is both the beginning and the end of the list management process.
It's also completely misguided to believe that teams who have won a premiership have done so
because they have a 196cm player or two in their forward half. Talls are important, no doubt about it - but certainly not at the expense of elsewhere on the field.
Quite clearly sides at the top of the tree have immense levels of talent across the park and to be able to match it with them we need to place ourselves in a position where that becomes a reality. We are not in a position to turn down a player, let alone a young gun, because they aren't a key position player. In fact I'd be quite comfortable in saying that no club across the competition would turn down the chance to recruit Shiel or Tomlinson - let alone both - because they can't necessarily play as a key forward or defender.
You'd be fired quicker than you can say "Serhat Temel" if you were a list manager with that line of thinking. You don't turn away top shelf talent because they aren't at least 196cm in height. It doesn't matter how many times you choose to spruik that it should happen, it doesn't and for very good reason.
Let's rewind to the 2011 National Draft and hypothetically give ourselves pick 9, knowing what we do now. I guess you'd be in favour of overlooking Tomlinson for one of Todd Elton or Fraser McInnes because they are listed at 197cm.
The spine is important but not at the expense of other positions on the field. Remember how cocky Essendon supporters became when they had their spine 'sorted' with Pears, Hooker, Hurley & Gumbleton?
A whole lot of good that did them, right?
I guess they're down the shitter because Pears is only 191cm.