{"id":683871,"date":"2026-05-20T22:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/683871\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T22:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:13:11","slug":"latrell-mitchells-tribute-to-ultimate-teammate-as-nrl-community-rallies-around-jai-arrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/683871\/","title":{"rendered":"Latrell Mitchell’s tribute to ‘ultimate teammate’ as NRL community rallies around Jai Arrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of the biggest names in the NRL<\/a> world are sending well-wishes and support to Jai Arrow after the South Sydney forward announced his immediate retirement<\/a> on Wednesday. The 30-year-old has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND), leaving the NRL community devastated.<\/p>\n

Latrell Mitchell described Arrow as the “ultimate teammate” on social media, while Souths captain Cameron Murray wrote: \u201cOne of the greats, love you forever.\u201d Former Rabbitohs player Adam Reynolds wrote, \u201clove ya brother\u201d, while commentator Andrew Voss said: \u201cWhatever we can do in the game for Jai, we will do. A terrific player and always been great to deal with in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The NRL community is showering Jai Arrow with support. Image: Getty<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs, Roosters, Storm, Cowboys, Panthers, Tigers and Knights all left comments on a social media post from the Rabbitohs. The Broncos, where Arrow debuted, wrote in their own tribute: \u201cAll love, Bronco #222. Thoughts are with Jai and his family.\u201d The Gold Coast Titans – Arrow\u2019s other former club – added: \u201cSending love to you and your family Titan 133.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrow played 178 NRL games – 24 for Brisbane, 56 for Gold Coast and 98 for Souths. He also played 12 State of Origin games for Queensland.<\/p>\n

\"Jai<\/p>\n

Jai Arrow (centre) played 12 State of Origin games for Queensland.<\/p>\n

(Mark Kolbe via Getty Images)Jai Arrow speaks out about devastating diagnosis<\/p>\n

Speaking to Channel 9 on Wednesday night, the 30-year-old said: “I wanted to do this to let people know I am OK and I am ready to fight. I do really have a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing is going to take me out easy. I wanna do everything I can – any trial, any medication that will maintain me for as long as I can. I want to inspire other people who have been diagnosed.”<\/p>\n

Souths coach Wayne Bennett and CEO Blake Solly were emotional on Wednesday afternoon after announcing Arrow\u2019s retirement. “There’s goosebumps running through me now. It’s just the last way you want someone to retire,” Bennett said. “But it is what it is and he’s handling it great and he’s helping us handle it a lot better as well.<\/p>\n

“He’s a wonderful young man to be part of the football club. We can’t believe what’s going to happen to him but he knows he’s got the support of everybody in the change room and he knows he’s got the support of everybody on the staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennett added: \u201cHe deserves all the accolades and all the support that he can get because he has a battle on his hands. He knows that and he also knows that he won’t have to do it by himself.<\/p>\n

“He’ll need that, but we’ll always be there for him in this club. That’s just the DNA of this club. He’ll need us and we’ll need him. No one’s walking away from anybody.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of the biggest names in the NRL world are sending well-wishes and support to Jai Arrow after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[18743,19974,64,63,5079,4494,1082,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-683871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-adam-reynolds","tag-andrew-voss","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cameron-murray","tag-jai-arrow","tag-latrell-mitchell","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}