Brisbane Lions defender Noah Answerth and Queensland Firebirds centre Macy Gardner have announced their engagement.

In a joint Instagram post on Tuesday, the sporting power couple simply wrote “22/8” with the infinity emoji and a love heart.

“He may have torn his Achilles but the knee still works. Congratulations to Noah and Macy on their engagement,” the Brisbane Lions added in a post of their own.

Answerth has established himself in recent years as one of the competition’s most reliable lock-down defenders and was a key member of the Lions’ 2024 premiership team.

Gardner is a star mid-courter for the Firebirds, where she notched her 50th Super Netball game last month.

She plays alongside Lara Dunkley and Tippah Dwan at the Firebirds, who are the sister and partner, respectively, of Answerth’s premiership teammate Josh Dunkley.

Answerth and Gardner’s good news was quickly flooded with messages of congratulations.

“Yayayay,” Dwan commented, while Lara Dunkley added two love heart-eyes emojis.

“SO HAPPY FOR YOU TWO!!” the Firebirds wrote.

Firebirds stars Ruby Bakewell-Doran, Ali Miller and Emily Moore also commented, as did Brisbane AFLW gun Nat Grider, and the daughter of Gold Coast Suns men’s coach Damien Hardwick, Issy Hardwick, who is also an AFL player manager.

There are several footy-netball couples within the AFL and Super Netball competitions, including Dunkley and Dwan, and Tim English and Rudi Ellis, while Adam Treloar is married to former Firebirds and Australian Diamonds star, Kim Ravaillion.

Answerth went down with a season-ending Achilles injury in Round 18, joining a long list of Lions players on the sidelines ahead of their seventh consecutive finals series.

Jack Payne, Kidean Coleman and Lincoln McCarthy are all done for the season, but the Lions will regain Lachie Neale and Jarrod Berry for their qualifying final against Geelong, and Eric Hipwood is expected to return in 2-3 weeks.