logo
AFL star Dale Thomas and wife Natasha welcome their first child together and reveal the baby girl's sweet name

AFL star Dale Thomas and wife Natasha welcome their first child together and reveal the baby girl's sweet name

Daily Mail​5 days ago
AFL star Dale Thomas and his wife Natasha have welcomed their first child.
The baby girl arrived last week, with the couple updating their fans on the good news on Tuesday night.
'Allegra Thomas. No words for this kind of love,' they wrote in a joint Instagram post.
Alongside the tot's birthdate - July 31 - the pair shared a series of images showing the newborn.
In one of the sweet photos, her smitten footballer father looked on at little Allegra as she lay on a bed.
The couple's celebrity friends were quick to congratulate them on their newfound parenthood.
'Naw congratulations! Beautiful name for a beautiful girl,' wrote Emma Hawkins.
'Awwwww she is perfection! Massive congratulations to you both,' commented Rhonda Burchmore.
'Yay! So happy for you guys!! She's the cutest,' said Abbey Holmes.
The AFL great, 37, shared the news that he and Natasha were expecting on Instagram in March, alongside a carousel of images showcasing his wife's growing baby bump.
The couple opted to let the images do the talking, adding the simple captions, 'Mum + dad' and 'Baby Thomas, due August. We love you so, so much.'
The lovebirds walked down the aisle at Mount William Station in rural Victoria in February last year.
The 160 guests in attendance included Eddie McGuire, MasterChef star Khanh, Olivia Molly Rogers, Rhonda Burchmore and footballer Heath Shaw, who was a groomsman on the day.
The bride stunned in an off-the-shoulder ivory gown with a thigh-high split designed by Mariana Hardwick.
The AFL great, 37, shared the news that he and Natasha were expecting on Instagram in March, alongside a carousel of images showcasing his wife's growing baby bump
In posts shared to Instagram from their big day, Natasha wrote: 'THIS IS A DREAM - THANK YOU' adding, 'MR AND MRS THOMAS'.
Dale, who's nicknamed Daisy, told Triple M's Rush Hour that he chose the 'glamping' theme - a form of luxurious camping - because he wanted to set a party mood for the event.
'It's all about having fun,' he said.
Dale made headlines in November 2022 after telling fans on his socials he had proposed to his long-term girlfriend Natasha.
The former Carlton and Collingwood player selected a picturesque Lake House in Daylesford, rural Victoria to pop the question.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

You can mute – but you can never leave. Why have WhatsApp groups become so stressful?
You can mute – but you can never leave. Why have WhatsApp groups become so stressful?

The Guardian

time19 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

You can mute – but you can never leave. Why have WhatsApp groups become so stressful?

It's the new last taboo. Officially added to the list of topics you absolutely must not discuss, along with politics, money and religion: the WhatsApp side group. Apparently nobody told Melanie C from the Spice Girls though, because she has just revealed far too much about theirs. 'There are subgroups within the group,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life magazine. 'I definitely know there is a chat group that doesn't contain me, but somewhere else we keep Ginger or Posh out.' Staying up to date with your side chats – not least ensuring each message you send doesn't go on the wrong thread – is the most anxiety-ridden full-time job most of us have ever had. A friend of mine has a group with five mums from her daughter's class, and another whittled down to four of them, then more with three, two and one. How she keeps track without the use of a murder investigation board with red strings pinned to photographs is genuinely a mystery. The latest data tells us what we already knew: WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world with more than 3 billion monthly active users. I think at this point I'm in a group with all of them. There's no faster, easier, more convenient way of staying in touch and making arrangements – and that's the problem. It's so quick and simple to set up a group that any social situation including more than two participants seems to result in one being formed. Often the conversation goes on, whether out of desire or politeness, long after the event has passed. This method of interacting can lead you down some ludicrous avenues, such as the recent debate I found myself in about whether 'hearting' an invitation means you're simply thanking the person for their kind offer or formally accepting it in a legally binding manner. (For the record, it's the former, right?) Complicating matters further is that we're not only in groups with our mates, but also those we know only barely, or sometimes not at all. I'm on a local WhatsApp group, formed to support quarantining neighbours in 2020, that's now a forum for questions that could have been Googled, passive-aggressive comments, and generous offers of free furniture people can't be bothered to take to the tip. It's filled with characters I've mostly never met but feel intimately acquainted with, and I have several side groups with friends on my road discussing the more controversial posts. Even the profile picture is divisive – one member's cat, Daisy, who half the street love and enjoy sharing sightings of, and the other half (secretly) hate because she defecates on their doorsteps. Recently a newcomer who'd left his back door open in the hot weather reported that Daisy had strolled into his house and started eating his dinner, with photographs to prove it. My phone got so hot through side-chat action I was worried it might explode. Worth it. It's fast becoming second nature to double check that each message is being put on the correct thread before posting, like the modern equivalent of the adage 'measure twice because you can only cut once'. Deleting, even if you're so lightning quick nobody had yet read it, leaves a notification that's such a clear admission of guilt you may as well have not bothered. Imagine what everyone would be saying in the side chats about you then! I took a vow of silence on our school chat when a fellow mum's husband read ours over her shoulder and observed sagely: 'No one comes out of this looking good, do they?' Legend has it that another class has a note pinned to the top of their group with the rules that must be abided by within, including, 'No LOLs.' The author's ears must have been warmer than my phone the day she typed that. And anyway, there's only one real law when it comes to WhatsApp groups and subgroups – muting the thread is fine, but actually exiting is not the done thing. Whatever you preface your farewell with, those you leave behind will get the message '*Your name* has left the group', with all the hair flicking and flouncing out that implies. Etiquette-wise, it's a no. You've made/been added without consent to your WhatsApp bed, and now you will lie in it for the rest of your life. A la the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Fremantle star Patrick Voss enrages dismayed Port fans with cheeky celebration during thriller
Fremantle star Patrick Voss enrages dismayed Port fans with cheeky celebration during thriller

Daily Mail​

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

Fremantle star Patrick Voss enrages dismayed Port fans with cheeky celebration during thriller

Fremantle Dockers player Patrick Voss has fired up footy fans with a very cheeky celebration after kicking an important goal during Saturday night's thriller. Fremantle staged a dramatic last-term comeback to pip Port Adelaide by six points and climb into the AFL 's coveted top four. Dockers skipper Alex Pearce took a soaring pack mark and goaled with less than a minute remaining, giving his side a precious 13.14 (92) to 13.8 (86) victory. Freo were 14 points down early in the last quarter but booted four of the last five goals. Voss was in impressive form and put Freo up by three during the final quarter and went straight to the Adelaide Oval crowd afterwards to shush them and wave goodbye. Speaking following the match, Pearce said he was worried about the impression Voss might have had on some Port fans. 'Hopefully we can just escort him into the bus and hotel without the Port fans getting into him,' Pearce said. 'He's good for footy, he's a bloke that you love playing with. He brings so much passion and energy and he's good for the game. 'He's probably a bit like (Hayden) Ballantyne to be honest ... most people that don't go for Freo want to punch him, but we all want to kiss him.' Teammate Caleb Serong said he wasn't sure about the celebration. 'I don't know about the wave, only a point up and still a few minutes left, he can put that one away I think,' he told Fox Footy. Freo jump from sixth to fourth ahead of games against Brisbane (home) and Western Bulldogs (away) in the run to the finals. Fremantle withstood a massive fright from 11th-placed Port, who logged a season-best eight-goal quarter. Port were bossed by Fremantle in the opening term as the visitors scored 4.5 to 0.4. But the Power violently turned the tide with an unheralded second quarter of 8.1, including seven goals in a 16-minute patch. Spearhead Mitch Georgiades scored the first major seven minutes into the term. By the 23rd minute, Port had turned a 26-point deficit into a 10-point advantage. Georgiades added another in a spree including a Jack Lukosius stunner featuring a clever ground-ball tap, a dummy and a checkside from a tight angle. The burst also included Aliir Aliir's first goal in 112 games for the Power. His strike after a 50m penalty gave the home side an 8.5 to 7.9 edge at halftime. 'Clearly, the second quarter was as good as we have played for some time,' Port coach Ken Hinkley said. 'It was nice to actually see that from a quite a young side out there ... executing under some pressure against a side who is in the top four.' Port twice stretched their lead to 15 points in the third term. And twice, Freo's 21-gamer Murphy Reid reduced the margin with eye-catching goals, highlighted by a remarkable bouncing effort from a boundary line. The Power lost Lukosius to a calf injury late in the third quarter but held an eight-point buffer at three quarter-time, 11.8 to 9.12.

Tax relief and Carmen Sandiego: Australia's once-dismissed video game industry is finally getting a leg-up
Tax relief and Carmen Sandiego: Australia's once-dismissed video game industry is finally getting a leg-up

The Guardian

time2 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Tax relief and Carmen Sandiego: Australia's once-dismissed video game industry is finally getting a leg-up

The idea that video games are not 'serious things', says Ross Symons, overlooks the benefits they offer to gamers feeling isolated. 'One thing that struck me during Covid is that games were the way that people connected and stayed together.' The chief executive of Big Ant Studios, a Melbourne-based game developer, recalls when in 2010 the then opposition leader Tony Abbott dismissed the national broadband network as being for 'internet-based television, video entertainment and gaming'. Symons says that dismissiveness of the video game industry has not stood the test of time. Last year alone, Australians spent $3.8bn on video games, according to the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA). The sector is small compared to large game development nations such as Canada – but that is slowly changing. In 2023, the federal government brought in the digital games tax offset (DGTO), which allows developers who make or port (develop games for systems that aren't the ones they were originally on) games in Australia to claim a 30% refundable income tax offset. It applies to companies which incur at least $500,000 in qualifying Australian development expenditure and is capped at $20m per company. Ron Curry, the chief executive of the IGEA, says in 2020-21 there were about 1,300 employees in the gaming industry in Australia – a figure which has now almost doubled. The Australian game development sector now accounts for 2,465 full-time workers and earned $339.1m in revenue in the financial year of 2023-24. 'That shows an almost 100% increase in employment and revenue has grown about 85%,' he says. 'The DGTO pulled a number of levers. Australia was a very expensive place to make games – we were the only developed country without any sort of rebate or offset. So it fixed that, so it brought us back in line with other developed countries.' Sign up: AU Breaking News email Curry says it signalled to the rest of the world there was confidence in the industry from government, and – in conjunction with state and territory grants to the sector – it made Australia a 'healthy environment to operate in' and generated confidence from investors, game publishers and prospective employees. Serge Zebian, partner at Playwright Consulting, a firm that advises gaming companies on accounting matters, says the offset has made an 'enormous difference' for companies hiring people in Australia and that momentum is starting to flow. 'We're making all the international studios aware of it, and some already are just from existing relationships with Australian vendors. But … now a lot of international studios are looking [toward] Australia. My clients' proposals are progressing really fast up the queue.' Zebian says NSW used to be the home for film while Victoria had the reputation as a games development hub, but competition is increasing. Queensland has added a 15% rebate on top of the federal government's 30% with a threshold of $250,000. In Victoria, the rebate is 10% or 15%, depending on shareholding, with a threshold of $500,000. 'What we're finding is a lot of indies [independent game studios] are … moving up to Queensland,' Zebian says. French developer Gameloft opened its Brisbane studio in 2014. The studio was behind the resurrection of iconic gaming character Carmen Sandiego this year on mobile, Netflix, Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Manea Castet, the studio head in Brisbane, says he grew up playing the Carmen Sandiego games with his father. He found the character scary: Sandiego is a thief, after all, who you have to chase all over the world. For Castet, to come back and be able to make the new game and have players instead assume the role of Sandiego was a 'fun twist'. Castet says Gameloft's Brisbane studio is the only one within the company experiencing large growth, expanding from 55 employees two years ago to 217 today. Castet says it allows the studio to work on two games at once and have more complete development of the game from design, tech, audio, quality assurance and marketing. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'Everywhere in the world, it's shifting … there is still a lot of money to be [made in] the video game industry, so having Australia pushing for that now, I think it's super smart.' Big Ant Studios found itself at the centre of controversy with the release of their Rugby League 26 game in July. Users complained about bugs in the game at launch, including jerseys with the wrong numbers on them and server errors making it difficult to play the game. Symons says it was a 'very good day' when numerous patches were rolled out to improve the game. He blamed tight deadlines for the release of the game to coincide with the NRL season and last-minute changes to the game. 'We were forced to make a hell of a lot of change in the game, 1,200 changes in the week before we release[d], and these changes were to do with betting sponsors, alcohol sponsors and all sorts,' he says. 'So we sat there stripping the hell out of the game, still having to meet our day. So that was tough.' Gambling and alcohol company logos that are featured on player jerseys in real life were removed from the game prior to release amid growing concern about marketing of those products to under-18s. Symons also says the company underestimated demand on the day the game went on sale; it sold six times more than their expectations, leading to server issues which he says have since been resolved. Big Ant had around 50 employees until the tax offset came in, which allowed the company to expand to 147 employees, Symons says. 'It allows us to be competitive with every other place on the planet.' The studios say a tight jobs market, where games development skills are often sought out by other industries including artificial intelligence, makes it more difficult to grow. Curry says the industry is proud participants have transferrable skills, but it makes it competitive for talent. Secure jobs, commensurate salaries and an immigration system that attracts senior talent would help recruiting, he adds. 'We know when you bring senior talent into a country, they act as an accelerator for those people that they're training,' he says. 'If you want to get a developer into Canada, you can do it in as little as two weeks through their system. We know people have taken up two years and beyond to get into Australia.' 'That just doesn't work when you're in a field that's quickly moving.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store