Just to provide some balance in this debate, I had a look at the other lists for players 181cm and shorter.
Brisbane have 6 players, 4 of whom are regular seniors.
Adelaide have 11 players, 6 of whom are regular seniors. (McLeod, Douglas, Johncock, Edwards, Porplyzia, Doughty)
Collingwood have 10 players, 3 of whom are regular seniors.
Bulldogs have 7 players, 4 of whom are regular seniors. (Gilbee, Eagleton, Harbrow, Akermanis)
Geelong have 9 players, 5 of whom are regular seniors. (Wojcinski, Varcoe, Chapman, Stokes, Byrnes)
Melbourne have 9 players, 6 of whom are regular seniors.
West Coast have 6 players, 2 of whom are regular seniors.
Sydney have 10 players, 6 of whom are regular seniors.
Carlton have 8 players, 6 of whom are regular seniors.
Essendon have 7 players, 4 of whom are regular seniors.
Fremantle have 7 players, 2 of whom are regular seniors.
Hawthorn have 13 players, 9 of whom are regular seniors. (Sewell, Mitchell, Ladson, Osborne, Rioli, Brown, Hooper, Bateman, Stokes)
Port Adelaide have 10 players, 6 of whom are regular seniors.
St Kilda have 7 players, 5 of whom are regular seniors. (Baker, McQualter, Schneider, Milne, Montagna)
Nth Melbourne have 10 players, 6 of whom are regular seniors.
We have 14 players, 7 of whom are regular seniors. (Tambling, Edwards, White, Cousins, King, Foley, Nahas)
And of our 7 remaining, 6 of them were recruited this year and 1 is a rookie from last year.
When you look at the players in the better teams, these shorter players are an integral and generally substantial part of the team balance, especially Adelaide, St Kilda and Hawthorn.
So maybe, just maybe, Hardwick looked at our list and knew that he was going to need 2 years of culling (too many for 1 year) and that he couldn't get all the talls he needed in 1 year so he used his early picks for better talls and topped up with smalls because the likelihood of a small 'hidden gem' going later was much better than a tall. And next draft he might just be looking to do the same but he has the advantage of having already had 12 months to look at and develop his first group of smalls, already knowing that year 2 of his cull will be more of his smalls - Cousins, King, White, Gilligan, Edwards, Nahas - are all possibilities/probabilities. And so maybe, just maybe, there is a very good reason that we appear to have more smalls than we need but through circumstances beyond his control and also with a view to the future years there are very good reasons for that. After all, the tops teams don't appear to place such a low value on smalls that many of the closed mind, knee jerk, chicken little posters on here do.