i hate him but hes a great player and should play stand-off

Agree with this bit. Unless he learns to catch the high ball, he'll always have a massive weakness as a full-back. Think, long-term, he could be devastating at stand-off.

hes a little cheat

To be fair to Tomkins, a lot of the best (and a few average) halves used to have a little nastiness/niggle/irritation about them

Gregory
Tomkins
Goulding
Bishop
Holding
Edwards

I'm led to believe, a certain Mr Murphy could be a bit of a b'5tard in his day.

You really don't need to look much further than Briers. Although he's not particularly nasty, he ticks the other 2 boxes.

I think it's a prerequisite of a quality half.