I seriously doubt there was a conscious decision that we needed bigger halves. I'm pretty sure it was because we had an abundance of quality forwards to fit into the side (Sculthorpe, Farrell, Fielden, O'Connor, McDermott, Peacock, Morley, Joynt, Forshaw, Anderson etc) but no quality halfback partner for Long/Deacon. The only other option was Danny Orr.

No, it was definatley to beef up the team by playing an extra forward at 6.

We had Harris, Martyn, Briers who could have played 6 but we went for larger players who had a better defence.

Harris - was selected in 96, 98 and 99, we played as England in 2000, then he left for union.
Martyn - Missed out to proper halves in 94, 96, 98 and 99, we played as England in 95 and 2000, injured in 2001, doubt whether he would have been good enough in 2002 if he wasn't injured (he would have been 31).

So neither Harris nor Martyn ever missed out to a forward. You could argue Briers should have been in but I suspect there were other off field reasons behind him never being selected for GB. He openly acknowledges his attitude to the game changed drastically once Tony Smith took over at wire.

I remember at the time knowing they were playing a 13 capable of playing 6 to keel is up against the Aussies, they had big 6s in Barrett/Anasta and Fitler so we went with an extra 13. And to be honest if Lockers was fit or we had another 13 capable of playing 6 like Sinfield/Sculthorpe or Farrell I'd play them alongside Williams no doubt about it.

Don't try to rewrite history by rubishing the 6s at the time, playing Faz or Scully at 6 was a way of beefing up the team rather than lack of decent halves.

We played forwards at stand off from 2001 to 2003. We've just established that Harris had gone to union, Martyn was past it, then retired. That left them with Briers (off field issues), Orr (hardly a world beater) or Maguire (only just establishing himself at Leeds, as soon as he had his big season where he scored a ton of tries in 2004 he was straight in and we stopped playing forwards at 6). We had Sculthorpe at 6 because our other options in the halves weren't good enough for test rugby, and we had some quality forwards we wanted out on the pitch.

It was a tactic employed by David Waite in 2001/2003 and it worked, that's the closest we've been to beating the Aussies in a series since the early 90s. I just wish we had a 13 capable of playing 6 nowadays but it seems SL coaches don't want big 6s at 13 they want props at 13 instead.

2001 Martyn was in his pomp, probably was injured though but we had the likes of Richard Horne and Ryan Sheridan who could have paired with Long or Deacon. Just admit it was a tactic employed by Waite and not through lack of halves

Yeah Martyn was injured in 01 (I watched the Australia game where we beat them last night to get myself in a good mood for Sunday and they mentioned him in the list of halves we were missing).

Horne - Was he ever good enough to play test rugby at stand off? If he was, I doubt it was when he was 19-21 years old
Sheridan - Missed nearly all of 2001 through injury, then in 2002 he was so good for Leeds that they sold him to Widnes.

Must try harder

If you watched it then you'd have seen Sculthorpe at 6 and Mike Forshaw at 7 with Richard Horne on the bench. Sinfield was playing 9, I know we had injuries at 9 in 2001 with Cunningham and Newton so that's why either Forshaw or Sinfield played 9 but at that time there were decent 6s and 7s so why choose 2 13s as halfback partners? Surely not all Martyn, Briers, Long, Deacon, Orr, Tony Smith etc were all injured?

It was a bad year for injuries! Martyn, Long and Deacon - all injured. Briers - off field issues I think. Smith was past it by then.

IIRC Tony Smith played for England the year before and didn't he score a try from a kick? Plus that year we had Paul Cooke too. You say Briers had off field issues but be played against France in the warm up in Avignon.

What's your excuse for 2003? What injuries did we have then?



Like 97 and 2001 and almost in 2003 we need a 13 at 6. However, due to the dumbing down of back rowers and loose forwards just calling them middles and playing props in those positions we don't have a 13 capable of doing so other than O'Loughlin who is injured.

Going back to the original point Hampshire is too small for my liking