The Gt Britain Masters Tour down under has begun.

They arrived on Sunday and are staying at the Manly Pacific Novetel on the Beach front(doing it tough) We joined them for a few quiet drinks on Sunday night and joined them for breakfast on Monday morning. They are excited at being here and are looking forward to meeting as many Masters players as possible.

The first game is on Wednesday night 23rd at the Forestville Rugby League Club, currie Road Forestville, off Waringah Road at 7pm.  All welcome

There will be a presentation and convivial after the match.

The second game is at our module on Sat 26th Sep at Rossford Reserve Smithfield. First game kicks off at 11am. The test match kicks off at 2pm against the Australian Team thatn toured Gt Britain last year.

There will be 30 other teams playing so it should be a great day.

The third game is at the Lower Mts Club on the 30th Sept at Warrimoo Oval. kick off approx 6.30pm and the last game on 1st Oct Sat at St Mary's Stadium being played after the Maori Carnival at approx 6.30pm.

We hope to see as many Masters players as we can supporting these tours because you never know you might be on the next one.

Malcolm

The first game against the NSW Blues was a great game played in great spirit.

The tourists were keen after waiting so long to tour and started at 100 miles an hour.

After the initial 10 minutes it settled down to a good game of masters with lots of skills and ball movement especially by the UK team.

In the end a runaway try to the Blues sealed the match and the final score was Gt Britain Nil NSW Blues Nil a true Masters result.

An enjoyable convivial was held after and the night was a great success.

A big thanks to the Forestville JRL For hosting the night and the word is they will field a Masters team next season, it will be good to have them on board.

On Sat 26th we had our test match at our last module Once again the Tourists were ready to play and after the anthems of both countries were played and a welcoming Haka performed the game got under way.

Once again the tourists  displayed great attacking skills especially the Gt Britain Fullback no 1 John Exley who was also their man of the   match. Once again the game was played in great spirit and at a good pace. The australian player of the day John Beasley of the Lower Mts Club stopped many raids with some outstanding defence and helped keep the score to nil all.

Though I believe the Tourists crossed our line once.....but that could be just some pommy bullshit!!   I prefer the official result.  Anyway...

Everyone enjoyed the day and as the beer got colder the stories got longer and many satisfied players relaxed.

A big thank you to all the teams that played on the day and allowed the English team to join in with their teams for other games.

The Gt Britain team asked me to express their gratitude for the way they have been accepted by everyone and they now have many more friends in Australia and you have all made their trip such an unforgetable experience.

We have another game at the Lower Mts Club on Wednesday night at 6.30pm all welcome and we play the last game on Sat at St Marys Stadium at 6.30pm once again all welcome to come and enjoy the night and have a farewell beer with our Masters friends,who watch the Grand final on Sunday and fly home on Tuesday.

Malcolm