As the white England shirts melted away from the streets of Sydney yesterday, the airport’s departure lounges were already filling up.
Thousands of fans, bleary-eyed after a night of drunken euphoria, made it the busiest day at Sydney airport since the end of the 2000 Olympics.
Jason Roberts (28) was hoping to be back at work on Monday morning after catching a flight out of Heathrow on Thursday night to arrive in time for Saturday’s final. ”It’s been the best weekend of my life, I haven’t slept since I arrived here, but there was no way I was going to miss that match,” he said, still clutching a rain-sodden England flag.
Sydney’s pubs were marked with an unaccustomed quiet late yesterday afternoon, as revelling England fans finally ran out of stamina and Wallabies supporters stayed home nursing their disappointment.
Crowds still thronged outside the team’s base in Manly, where England coach Clive Woodward began his coaching career in the mid-80s. Cheers went up for each new player returning the worse for wear after a night of celebration.
The England players’ celebrity seems to have endeared them even to the usually indifferent Australian public. Jason Leonard, Martin Corry and Paul Grayson hitched a lift back to Manly in a passing police van after an officer recognised them.
The Australian media still seem genuinely poleaxed by a result that few of their boosterist sports writers had appeared seriously to entertain.
Journalists at the Australian were given an unprecedented morning coffee break on Friday so they could have green-and-gold iced doughnuts.
Local sports writers had expected an Australian victory and even an England win powered solely by Jonny Wilkinson’s kicking, but few had predicted that the English would come out winning with such a multi-faceted game.
But despite the petty sniping some local papers engaged in last week, the Australian press since Saturday has come out as resoundingly generous losers.
”England’s win on Saturday night was almost certainly the best result the sport could have hoped for,” writes Bruce Wilson in today’s Sydney Daily Telegraph.
However, there were a few touches of resentment creeping into Monday’s newspapers with Jeff Wells of the Daily Telegraph calling for the rules of the game to be rewritten so that drop goals would only earn one point.
What the papers say
‘Read it and weep’ front page, Sydney Sun-Herald
‘We’re sad, but we congratulate you’ Former Wallabies coach Bob Dwyer, Sydney Sunday Telegraph
‘The perfect ending to the ultimate tournament’ Greg Growden, Sydney Morning Herald
‘At the moment I just don’t feel like living’ Wallabies lock Justin Harrison
‘England were champions, and they deserved to be’ Bruce Wilson, Sunday Telegraph – Guardian Unlimited