Where's Wally?

Greetings Becks & Dan fans, well what a fun weekend we had. It involved a wallaby, a dolphin, a rugby ball and 112 rugby players (something for the ladies!).

Adelaide became a rugby mecca at the weekend when 16 teams from across the world came together for the international rugby 7's. Myself and Rebecca had been specially selected to attend the event as I had enthusiasically agreed to be the Australian mascot for the tournament, Wally the Wallaby. Now, some of you may say that this is treason, but I would call it iniative, as we basically got in for free with access all areas passes and lots of food.

My role was to say hello to the kids (by waving, not allowed to speak, rule 1), run in a prop relay (they are the fat boys of rugby) and generally entertain everyone dressed as a 6ft 5 Wallaby. I performed 8 times over the weekend in 30 minute stints (rule 2, the mascot uniform must not be worn for more than 30 minutes) and managed to loose about 10kg through sweat..nice. It was also a great chance for myself and Becks to discover the trust we have in our relationship as basically when the suit goes on you can't see a thing (rule 3, the mascot must not be left on their own at any time!) So Becks did a great job and guiding me into doors and tripping over pavements (only joking, she was great).

In between my moments of fame we watched the rugby, we soon became very bored as England carried on their six nations run by loosing to everyone, even Kenya! since when did they start palying rugby... aparently in the 90's. Has England still not learn't that we should not teach other countries how to play our sports as generally they end up beating us at them. We should learn the lessons of America and basically only play against ourselves, but call the games World Series.

The funniest thing was that our english friends Andy & Carla also attended the 7's and were interviewed after England had lost their last game. To say Carla let the boys have it was an understatement. As the England team left the field on the big screen, Carla told them basically they were an embaresement and made our lives living here in SA even harder, they should pull there fingers out and do better next time. You could actually see some the England boys looking at the screen and wanting to run and hide, all very amusing.

To put being a mascot into perspective, we met Dolly the Dolphin. Dolly was a 110kg man dressed in a dolphin outfit and making flipper noises, a little disterbing. We got chatting and basically it turns out he does this as a profession! he gets paid, has a union and spends a lot of his time being a female dolphin, quite bizzare. I think we may have annoyed him a bit as we were basically laughing around and not taking it very seriously. Naughty Wally and Becky.

So all in all a fun and different weekend. A lot of Aussies have been most put out that a 'Bloody Pom' would wear their national mascot (I didn't want to point that they can't complain to much as they basically eat their two national emblems anyway), and I can't help wonder if I hadn't worn it would England have played better?