Adam Griffith's resonating words have played their role in shaping the future of two of the state's highest profile figures one way or another.
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Hobart Hurricanes teammates James Faulkner and D'Arcy Short will direct their focus on the Big Bash instead of uniting for Tasmania after not accepting deals.
Faulkner is all but resigned to stand out of the first-class game for the rest of his career while Short declined to move states for a pragmatic coach.
But the budding Test start of the Launceston allrounder after capturing six wickets on debut against England nearly seven years ago has been extinguished by long-term but constant nagging injuries.
Griffith wanted a 30-year-old Faulkner to take it easy and get his body right before ever donning the whites.
"I have spent a lot of time talking to Jimmy - we've got a really good relationship," Griffith said.
"He has just a really important player for us in the Hurricanes' space. He hasn't played much red-ball cricket for quite a while now, so to have him on a contract and have the pressure of committing to the Tigers' program for the 12 months of the year where potentially he might only play a few one-dayers is quite a big ask for him.
"We've had a lot of conversations around that; mutually we came to the conclusion that we would not contract him into the Tigers' space, knowing he will train with us.
"Our 100 per cent goal is to have him ready for the start of the Big Bash, which will mean he will train in the Tigers' program. It just eases the pressure on him."
The last four-day appearance for the Tigers was back in November 2017, which for all intents and purposes shows that Faulkner has missed the better part of three Sheffield Shield campaigns.
But Griffith would not put a line through the Faulkner's name after English county Lancashire withdrew its deal that will assist the ageing star.
"At this stage, it is just one-day cricket [for Tasmania]. He has been on the record to say it would be a tough ask to get him back into the red-ball [cricket]," Griffith said.
"You never rule anything out, but at this stage we're really just focusing on the white ball with James.
"We've got a really strong program around him and we're very confident we can have him ready to go for the start of the season.
"He's obviously not going to England now with all the travel restrictions, so it's probably like he was a few years ago when he had a really good preseason and flying."
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Short, on the other hand, has taken over the wheel from the often-sidelined Faulkner and has been flying since initially landing in Tasmania just before Christmas in 2016.
The T20 CV has accumulated 83 domestic games in additional to 20 internationals for Australia, but just the 14 first-class games for his native Western Australia.
Short's blockbusting boundary hitting at the top of the order for the Hurricanes has seemingly overshadowed a start to his career as an effective let-arm wrist spinner.
So Griffith admitted to being "a little bit" disappointed that Cricket Tasmania was not able to work out a deal with Short's manager to relaunch a push into the Test team.
The tough negotiations did not come to fruition, but Griffith was optimistic what it achieved for the 29-year-old to take stock of the time left on his one-dimensional game.
"We obviously talked to his manager a bit, but I also spend a lot of time talking to D'Arcy personally as well," Griffith said.
"We've got a great relationship because he obviously spends a lot of time with us during the Big Bash competition.
"I thought we were pretty close, but he in the end elected to stay home in WA.
"I completely understand that - he is from Western Australia, he's about to get married, he built a house, he's got a really good life over there for himself.
"But we thought we offered him a really good opportunity for him to come and play cricket - he has decided to stay there and that's okay. We'll still look forward to getting him down in purple."
Griffith was not all down about missing out on adding another slow bowler to the Tigers' roster after securing left-arm finger spinner Tom Andrews from South Australia, who could have been paired up with Short.
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