AFL star Josh Daicos’ ‘unexpected’ first date with fiancée

AFL star and Brownlow contender Josh Daicos is a force on the football field.
But while the 25-year-old is of superstar status in the Aussie sporting world, the Collingwood player’s years-long romance began in classic Melbourne fashion – in a bar on Chapel street.
Speaking to 9honey at the 2024 Australian Open, Daicos recalled the exact moment he met his now-fiancée, former Miss Universe Australia model Annalise Dalins, 23, at a bar three years ago.
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“I’d spoken to Anna before on Instagram, but we randomly met one night there,” he said from the Emirates Suite at the AO, admitting he had “recognised” the model, who was out with her friends.
Daicos was the one to make the first move, saying it was Dalins’ smile that drew him in.
“As soon as I saw her, I saw her smile and it made it so easy to go over there and talk to her, and the conversation just flowed,” the athlete said.
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Describing Dalins as “really warm as a person,” he said they “hit it off pretty quick.”
What started off as a “great chat” in a Melbourne bar turned into coffee the next week, and as Daicos told 9honey in the Emirates Suite, “It’s been good fun ever since.”
“That’s the recommendation we give to everyone looking for someone – go to Chapel Street,” he joked.
For their first “proper” date, the couple went to a rooftop pizza and wine bar called Santoni on Glenferrie Road in Hawthorn, before the night took an “unexpected” turn.
“Then we went to a pub and then another pub,” Daicos said.
“It was a bit of a pub crawl and that was, yeah, unexpected, obviously.”
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More than three years down the track, with plenty of adorable red carpet dates in between, the pair are as loved-up as ever.
“It’s just been so much fun,” Dalins told 9honey.
“We always talk about how we’re so excited to celebrate every anniversary, but then it got to a point where we just knew that it was just gonna keep going.”
When Collingwood took home the premiership trophy in 2023, Dalins was right there cheering on her AFL beau from the stands.
The model was there on the field to celebrate after the victory, capturing the iconic moment with a heartwarming Instagram post in September last year.
“My love you did it! This is a moment you will never forget. Forever,” Dalins wrote.
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“My love you did it! This is a moment you will never forget. Forever,” Dalins wrote.
While Daicos and Dalins hadn’t yet moved in together in January, the AFL star told 9honey they “basically” lived together and “struggle[d] to stay a night away from one another.”
“I’m always either at Anna’s in Port Melbourne, or she’s either always at my family home,” he said, adding the move would be coming “definitely soon.”
“We’re not in a rush, but at the same time I think we’re both excited to and it’s something that we’re looking forward to,” he said.
Another thing Daicos said in January was that they weren’t rushing a walk down the aisle – but by September, they’d be engaged.
“She’s the one, there’s no rush,” Daicos said, joking that an engagement might come if Collingwood won the premiership again.
He obviously couldn’t wait until premiership time, getting down on one knee while on holiday in Greece days before the 2024 Grand Final.
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