Do not scratch your eyes, you are really seeing this.
The Tasmanian AFL club unveiled its mascot on Tuesday night and images from the event have got Australians all making the same joke.
Tasmania Devils chairman Grant O’Brien on Tuesday night explained how the mascot was created with extensive consultation with the local community.
But that hasn’t stopped those from the “mainland” shaking their heads at the rat-like figure’s unveiling. The new critter has been handed the name Rum’un, a local slang term describing someone who is more than a bit cheeky.
The announcement came exactly 12 months after the AFL’s 19th team showed off its colors and Apple Isle logo as it prepares to enter the competition in 2028.
While the use Tassie Devil emblem and the traditional green, yellow, and red color scheme were largely well-received, the club’s mascot flopped hard in the eyes of commentators.
Tasmania’s Mikaela Maree Whitton responded to the AFL’s first photo post of the mascot on X by writing, “I want to cry.”
One X user posted: “That’s out of a horror movie.”
One person responded to a post from SEN Tasmania by writing: “It looks like a New York subway rat.”
Another wrote: “Is this a joke.”
Other footy commentators pointed out Rum’un’s similarities to other Aussie icons, including Fatso the Fat-Arsed-Wombat immortalized at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The club and those connected to the design were, however, incredibly proud of the mascot unveiled.
As first reported by Code Sport, chief designer Bryony Anderson, of Terrapin Puppet Theatre in Hobart, was given a brief for her creation to be “kick-ass,” but also friendly enough not to freak out kids.
The jury is still out on that front.
According to the report, Anderson said the design was warmly received by children at Howrah Primary School when they were given a sneak peek in February.
“The signs were really good when the devil got mobbed for half an hour solid and left the room to a spontaneous chant…‘devil, devil’,” Anderson said.
“I really hope that people just feel that it’s their devil.”
Terrapin approached the Tasmania Football Club with an offer to make Rum’un.
“They [Terrapin] asked me if I would like to work on it and I said if we could include community and Palawa playwright Nathan Maynard involved in the character.
“We worked with Nathan and he wrote an origin story for the character, which is epic: born with a football in its mouth in the mountains, of gravel and struggle, and that informed the character.
“Then I went out and spoke to teams on training grounds, I had a sketch and said what do you reckon?
“They said it had to be kick-ass, have bloody knees to represent the players from Queenstown on the gravel, it had to have tatts.
“Some wanted full-arm tats but some of the girls at Clarence modified that to the Tassie tat, and not be too scary because some of the Auskick kids might get frightened, so make it cheeky instead.
“So I went for cheeky with a little bit of ‘don’t mess with me’.
“They had heaps of ideas and I did my best to incorporate them all.”
“All the kids that have been part of that will feel an ownership.”
The team still has a lot to do before 2028.
The biggest headache to plague the club has been the political football played around its new, 23,000-seat roofed stadium being built at Hobart’s Macquarie Point.
It cost of the project was initially assessed to be a $775 million hit to the taxpayer.
However, an independent economist in January told the ABC the project is “already displaying the hallmarks of mismanagement” and is likely to cost more than $1 billion.
O’Brien has categorically shut down suggestions the team’s stadium timeline has been set back, despite construction being yet to start on the showpiece facility at Macquarie Point.
A six-person panel is currently examining some 5,000 pages of reports compiled by the Macquarie Point Development Corporation, which encompasses elements such as heritage assessments, urban planning, and the $780 million stadium’s potential economic impact.
The project still has to pass through both of Tasmania’s houses of parliament, with the stadium a crucial part of Tasmania’s license agreement with the AFL, which will see the team join the competition in 2028.
Tasmania Football Club CEO Brendon Gale said in a statement earlier this week Rum’un was a true reflection of the club.
“Our newest recruit, Rum’un, will help us on our journey and be a great beacon of our Club across the state,” he said.
“The creation of Rum’un reflects our Club – uniquely Tasmanian, handcrafted and created with grit and determination representing our whole island. Rum’un is also a little bit cheeky.
“These characteristics are all true to the Tasmania Football Club, a Club that represents our whole state and who does things our way.”
