Bleary eyes await millions of Australians

SYDNEY, June 12 (Reuters) Bleary eyes awaited millions of Australian football fans today as they anxiously counted down the hours to Australia's first World Cup finals match in 32 years.

Australia's Group F match against Japan was due to kick off at 1830 hrs IST, 11pm local time, and bosses were being urged to be sympathetic to workers who turn up late tomorrow after watching the Socceroos into the early hours.

Some politicians even predicted a slow day in the nation's capital when parliament resumes sitting after a public holiday on today.

''There's going to be bleary-eyed Australians tomorrow as they turn up to work after the long weekend and it won't be because they hung one on, it will be because they'll be up watching the Socceroos,'' Labor opposition leader Kim Beazley said.

''I expect a fairly desultory day in parliament tomorrow as we have some of the effects of having celebrated a great Socceroos win,'' he said.

Sports-mad Prime Minister John Howard wished the Socceroos good luck and said he too would burn the midnight oil.

''I think there will be millions of our fellow countrymenand women watching them and cheering them on,'' Howard told reporters.

Morris Iemma, premier of Australia's largest state of New South Wales, suggested employers should not be too hard on soccer fans in the workforce.

''He said employers should go a bit easy on staff if they turn up a little late tomorrow,'' a spokesman for Iemma said.

Iemma's plea stopped short of former Prime Minister Bob Hawke's famous champagne-drenched declaration after Australia won sailing's coveted America's Cup in 1983 that any boss who sacked a worker for not turning up ''is a bum''.

REUTERS PDS RS1731