No More Room In The City
Sun Herald
Sunday November 16, 2003
SYDNEY is packed to the rafters with an estimated 160,000 rugby fans from New Zealand, England and France joining Australian fans for the Rugby World Cup finale.
The city will be the focus of the sporting world with a possible TV audience of 3 billion people in more than 130 countries.
Passions are high, with a guaranteed north v south final next Saturday.
Empty hotel rooms are as rare as front-rowers' field goals, with hotels reporting that they have been booked out as far as Katoomba, Newcastle and Wollongong.
The Accor chain said its 31 hotels in and around Sydney were all packed for the finals.
But surprisingly yesterday there were a handful of rooms still available next weekend at the Novotel Olympic Park. But be prepared to fork out $344 a night.
Major corporations have found all sorts of excuses to hold business meetings in Sydney.
One in five corporations is hosting international board members for the week, wining and dining them in corporate suites at the rugby.
The NSW Chamber of Commerce said half of the 64 biggest companies in NSW were hosting international clients for the Rugby World Cup.
But the big money that the World Cup will generate for Sydney is small bickies compared with the raw passion that is filling the city.
For some, the passion is personal. French national Sybille Chevojon and Englishman Damian Wade have been together for 11 years, enjoying their own version of the Hundred Years War played over and over, trading jibes about each other's countries.
During today's rugby match, when the old rivals from across the Channel meet each other at Telstra Stadium, their tradition of Franco-British rivalry will peak. As Ms Chevojon sees it, it is a chance to bring their own ``little war" onto a much bigger scale the rugby field.
© 2003 Sun Herald