The photo they used to announce this happy news is cute, cute, cute.

If you’re an NRL fan, you’ll know Johnathan Thurston as four-time winner of the prestigious Dally M Medal.

If you’re not, you’ll know him from that adorable photo that went viral after North Queensland’s grand final win last month, showing the athlete emotionally cradling his daughter Frankie.

Either way, it’s hard not to be pleased at the news that the NRL superstar secretly wed his long-term partner this week.

The 32- year-old Cowboys co-captain secretly married the mother of his children, Samantha Lynch, on Hamilton Island in The Whitsundays on Tuesday.

The NRL premiership superstar married Lynch on Whitehaven Beach, at a private ceremony attended only by a select few.

Their daughters, three-year-old Frankie Louise and nine-month old Charlie Grace, were present at the nuptials.

We’d been hoping to keep this quite until all of our nearest & dearest received official notifications in the mail however the news is out there now. We were married on the stunning Whitehaven Beach in front of our parents & our daughters ???? @jthurston06

A photo posted by @slynchpin on Nov 5, 2015 at 1:17am PST

Lynch broke the news on Thursday night on Instagram, posting a family wedding photo along with a caption that read: “Samantha and Jonathan are pleased to announce that they eloped and were married on November 3, 2015 on Hamilton Island.

“We’d been hoping to keep this quite [sic] until all of our nearest & dearest received official notifications in the mail however the news is out there now,” the caption continued.

“We were married on the stunning Whitehaven Beach in front of our parents & our daughters.”

In the family portrait, Lynch wears a white dress and a floral crown, while Thurston looks smart in a light grey suit.

The pair’s daughters are seen grinning as they wear white frocks that may be flowergirls’ dresses.

Thurston proposed while he and Lynch were on holiday in the US in 2012, and the pair’s wedding date marked the pair’s three year anniversary of their engagement.

Images of indigenous player Thurston holding Frankie after the Cowboys’ grand final win quickly spread across Facebook and Twitter last month, with fans calling the pictures “adorable” and “perfect”.

In the photos, Frankie cluthes a dark-skinned doll and wears her own tiny Cowboys jersey as her visibly emotional dad lovingly gazes at her.

Other images from after the Grand Final show a clearly-in-love Lynch and Thurston sharing a kiss on the field as little Frankie looks on.

Congratulations, Johnathan and Samantha. We couldn’t be happier for you.