With Barlow & Greenie cowering under their pillows the rest of the squad have a full days activities planned for tomorrow after today's sightseeing

Today the boys visited the town of Bath, which was built by the Romans over 2,000 years ago by the conquering Roman army. Bath has baths houses where the hot water is provided by mother nature in the form of natural hot springs.

Tomorrow the boys will be traveling about an hour to visit the famous STONEHENGE site, we asked the the AIS media manager Dave Norman if he reckons the forwards could push one of those big rocks over?, Dave said, "hehehe, they won't let us anywhere near the stones"

CALE HOBDAY PLAYER of the TOUR	AIS v WALES action photo's by : IAN LOVELL
RYAN POOLEY	MICHAEL 'Sticks' LUCAS
DYLAN HILL Dubbo NSW	MATTHEW NEAN Ballina NSW
INTERVIEW (.mp3) 7.3 megs [errors, itz-a-bit-slow]	INTERVIEW (.mp3) 2.9 megs
BRIAN WITT Team Doctor	sorry but we are having technical issues with our latest interviews, we are working on the problem now [13:22 pm Sat 051109]
INTERVIEW (.mp3) 4.2 megs

It's a miserable day over in Engalnd for the boys and squad, they were going to go to York for a visit but the weather is a shocker

Instead they are doing what all tourists do, they are going to some place called Tradford Center for what, yep, more shopping, the reggie department could get another work out.

AIS Celebrate their great victory over the Great Britain Community Lions (Photo : KT8 Photography) PLENTY MORE SOON
GREAT BRITAIN COMM LIONS	20 - 48	AIS
TRIES : GOALS :		TRIES : Maipele Morseu GOALS :
HALF TIME SCORE 14 - 18
PENALITIES : 8 - 7

Plenty more soon - including some more interviews with some of the boys


GOOD NEWS @ HALF TIME
Dave Norman reports : at half time from Manchester
Australia lead the Great Britain Community Lions in the first 40 minutes of the 1st half, with a good ref allowing the boys to play footy and a penalty count of 2 - 3 in the Aussie's favour, its been a good half of footy by both teams

The Community Lions were first to score after a tight first 17 minutes, 3 minutes later the Aussie's hit back to level the scores.

3 minutes after that, the Australian were in again only to see the English foes cross again to level the scores at 12 - all

the Community Lions converted a penalty from in front to hold a slim lead going into the half only to watch a flying Aussie race in to score just before the half time siren.

The AIS lineUp & sing the National Anthem with GUSTO
OUR BIG THANKS TO OURFOOTY M8 Ste JONES from   KT8 PHOTOGRAPHY for these great action foto's     we might make him an honourary Aussie, what do you's reckon ?
	AIS v GBCL
AIS v GBCL	AIS v GBCL
AIS v GBCL	AIS v GBCL
AIS v GBCL	AIS v GBCL
WELL DONE TO THE AIS SQUAD ON A BIG IMPROVEMENT FROM THE LAST GAME,   MATCH REPORT & MORE GR8 FOTO's SOON   KEIRAN, give ste the photographer his ourfootyteam t-shirt
	AIS v GBCL

Maiple Morseu spots a gap - Australian Schoolboys v GRC U 18 YOUNG LIONS 2nd Test aCtioN - St. Mary's Stadium, Sydney Australia (Photo : ourfootymedia)

Story & Photo's By :

Maipele was part of the Queensland Schoolboys side that cleaned up by winning the ASSRL Championships in Newcastle earlier this year.

The Great Britian Community Lions are the next game for the AIS squad, the GBCL and Maipele have already battled each other twice this year when the Community Lions toured Australia a few months ago.

Maipele was on fire for the Australian Schoolboys in the 1st Test at Canberra Stadium then again at St. Mary's Stadium in Sydney to give the Aussies a 2 Tests to nil victories.

The Community Lions have improved since their Aussie Tour, playing matches against the French, Scottish and the powerful Welsh u 18 team.

Maipele was good enough to answer a few of the questions sent in by you guys, ourfootyteam visitors, so hear goes.

1. DO YOU LIKE THE FRENCH FOOD AND WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE DISH?
"No not really cause we hate to much bread not as aussie on and my favourite dish was having to taste snails, frogs and horse meat"

2. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE WAR MEMORIAL
"Yeah the war memorial was good to see how our soldiers battled hard."

3. ARE THE FRENCH GIRLS HOT?
"Yeah there were heaps of hot girls don't mind coming back for a visit"

4. HOW DO THE FRENCH REACT TO THE VISITING AUSSIES?
"They think we were the Australian team so we felt pretty good and they welcomed us which was good."

5. WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE IN FRANCE?
"Visiting Paris and going to Effile tower and site seeing around France"

The boys are nursing a bumps and bruises from what was a very physical and at times spiteful game. The French spoiling tactics, combined with a loopsided penality count (14 - 4) delivered the French argubly one of their finest wins

AIS headcoach Mr. Brian Johnson said " Despite being disappointed with the loss, praised his players on their effort and composure in very difficult circumstances"

AIS TRIES : Royce, JEFFERIES, Ryan POOLE, Maipele MORSELI, Cale HOPDAY, Michael LUCAS

SPECIAL MENTION TO BIG CALE HOBDAY - BEST on the GROUND, VOTED AIS BEST PLAYER AND to top it off was awarded the BEST on the GROUND by the FRENCH Coaches

CALE HAD A BLINDER

STOP THE PRESS : scorers could be incorrect - the boys are shopping and chatting on facebook, more news and some action foto's tomz - 1,000's of bikini clad babes hit the beaches in Australian heatwave, the boys are in France not quite freezing, but England is about 10 degrees colder - lol

We will be interviewing a few of the boys over the weekend, if you have any questions you would like us to ask, send your questions here

In front of what locals described as one of the biggest crowds seen at the Jean Bernege Stadium in Tonneins in quite a while the Australian Rugby League’s AIS program team opened their 2009 tour of France and Great Britain with a hard fought 16 – 13 win over the very much improved and committed French under 18 team.

AIS Head coach, Brian Johnson, whilst a little disappointed in his teams’, at times, poor execution, praised his players for the way they stayed in the game and come away with the win.

“We weren’t great tonight but we’ve been travelling for three days solid across the world to get here and had a very limited preparation.”

Soon after the kick off it became very clear to all that the French team had turned up to play and from the outset they attacked the Australian team in both offence and defense.

The French team opened the scoring after just 9 minutes with a surprise field goal.

A few minutes later on the back of very strong set the AIS struck back through first time captain Dean Blackman and with the conversion from Kyle Fields the AIS took the lead 6 – 1.

On the back of a very lopsided penalty count that was the last points of the half for the Ais team. The weight of possession finally paid off for the French when in the 30th minute the French lock finished a very good passage of play and scored their 1st try.

With an unsuccessful kick the half time score stayed 6 points to 5 in favour of the visitors.

After the break the French team continued with a series of enterprising plays and after 7 minutes were awarded a penalty 25 metres out from the Australian line which they quickly converted into 2 points via the kick and took the lead 7 points to 6.

The AIS once again spurred into action eight minutes later scored their second try through five eight Paul Carter. With the extras Australia jumped out to a 12 – 7 lead.

Not to be outdone and with a very vocal home crowd cheering them on the French were again rewarded when their No 4 finished off a well executed move scored out wide.

The conversion was unsuccessful but the French were again albeit by the slenderest of Margins.

With the of a major upset staring them in the face the French crowd again lifted their team and the score remained unchanged until, with 3 minutes to go, the Australians put together their best passage of play of the match and scored a match winning try through their centre, No 4 Ryan Pooley.

Best on ground was awarded to the French No6 Lilian Abert. The AIS team awarded their players player award to their five eight Paul Carter.

Today the Squad head to Toulouse for the 2 nd game against the French u19's

The players who did not play in the first game will be having a run with almost 10 players backing up, the injury scene is good, "we only have one minor injury with is a hammy"

HAPPY 63 rd Birthday to supaCoach Brendan BARLOW ( I thought he was 63 last year _ lol)

The Australian held the narrowest of margins to lead by one point at the half time break and have done just enough for victory against a highly improved French National U18 squad.

Ourfootyteam spoke with Mr. David Norman this morning by telephone who is the excited media man for this tour, here is some of what Dave said.

This first game was a good test against this very much improved French u18 side, the 3 tries to 2 victory will be a wake up call for the young Aussie's who were a bit rusty in this game.

The Aussie's struggled with their ball control and will need to lift in preparation for Thursday clash with the French u19 side.

Australia's "Players Player" was young champion Paul Carter who put in a strong performance to lift his side to the win.

This was one of those game were the ref had a major impact on the game, the penalty count was amazing (stats coming), the ref must have got paid every time he blew his whistle, so this must have been his retirement game.

David said, "the ground was in terrific nick, the French were a very committed side and are a much improved side since last year"

It was a long trip to the ground for the Aussie touring party, with the game played 1 1/2 hours away from their base in France.

The boys have been doing the tourist bit too, having visited the Somme on Monday, the boys also paid their respects to Dave Normans great uncle who fell at Peron in world war 1.

Tomorrow the President has invited the squad to visit the Airbus factory where they assemble the gigantic Airbus a380 in one of the world largest buildings.

Match Report & Photo's when we come back from meeting Hulk Hogan

LAST YEARS AIS SIDE CELEBRATE

The touring AIS squad have two games agaonst the much improved French juniors, the first game is against the French Under 17's, then its the French U19's.

After a bit of time shopping in gay old Paris, its across the English channel to play the Great Britian Community Lions who have also just completed a successful Aussie tour.

The final AIS game will be against the Welsh National juniors