If we did not pick up Pears we still would have had Hooker and Hurley as tall backs.. Pears as another quality tall defender is just an added bonus that allows us to essentially play a similar player in Hurley forward.
As for Williams being the perfect player for us, a bloke we call 'Gus' says hi Zaharakis has also been playing this role at times for us, whilst Davey has shown he is more than capable of being a hit up target.
As for previous selections... Joel Selwood was the premier junior, a standout and a player who was always going to walk into an AFL club and dominate. His shoulders were suspect and that is the reason for clubs overlooking him before the Hawks took a punt
First off - Yes we would still have had Hooker and Hurley but then who plays forward with Gumbleton? Neagle? Yeah he has got talent but as we all know there are still many question marks over him whilst the Ruckmen do need to have some rest throughout the game.
Second - Yes we have Monfries, Zaharakis and Davey but cast your mind back to the end of last year and Davey had shown nothing like his 2010 form bar the r.13 Carlton game and a lot of people - me included - were hoping to see a lot more of Zaharakis up the ground this year which would've left only Monfries. Look I'm well aware of Monfries and his talents but I just felt at the time that Williams would compliment Monfries given that Monfries pushes up to the wings whereas Williams played primarily deeper in the forward line at Hawthorn and there were also other question marks over Davey, Jetta and even Reimers.
Third - Yes it would be great to have Selwood and he was highly rated before the draft but no-one knew that Gumbleton would have this injury run whilst Selwood had also had something like two knee recos in two years. Look hindsight is great and Selwood would be brilliant to have at the dons but thats just the way it is and Geelong took the risk and it paid off but it could so easily have gone the other way.
Finally, hindsight is great and its easy to say knowing what we know now. Having said that, I agree that our recruiters may have got some wrong before and shouldn't only ever be praised but I just feel like there are some people on here who sometimes only post a certain side of the story to suit their argument (Not aimed at the two posters that I've quoted in this thread by the way). Anyway my work is done, I feel like I've made my point and I'll just leave it at that.