{"id":697743,"date":"2026-05-27T11:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T11:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697743\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T11:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T11:18:11","slug":"state-of-origin-2026-jai-arrow-joins-queensland-maroons-squad-motor-neurone-disease-diagnosis-tributes-news-videos-origin-series-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697743\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Origin 2026: Jai Arrow joins Queensland Maroons squad, motor neurone disease diagnosis, tributes, news, videos, Origin series opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jai Arrow has arrived at Accor Stadium with the Maroons squad in emotional scenes only days after he revealed his heartbreaking motor neurone disease diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Sporting Queensland\u2019s maroon blazer, white shirt and tan pants, Arrow was spotted smiling and chatting with NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo and head of football Graham Annesley.<\/p>\n

Arrow joined the Maroons squad ahead of the series opener, accepting Billy Slater\u2019s invitation to spend time with the Queensland group in Sydney.<\/p>\n

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Jai\u00a0Arrow gets off the Queensland bus before game one of the 2026 Men’s State of Origin series.Source: Getty ImagesA touching nod to Jai Arrow. Credit: Queensland Maroons Instagram.Source: Supplied<\/p>\n

Slater played with Arrow during the 2018 Origin series and made sure that the workhorse forward was brought into the team environment ahead of the first game in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Arrow joined the team for dinner on Monday night and will act as the team\u2019s spiritual 20th man, according to Code Sports<\/a>, with a highlights package of his 12 Origin games being played.<\/p>\n

\u201cJai is one of those guys that loves being around his mates, his teammates, a footy environment. He\u2019s the life of the party, and that was no different last night,\u201d Slater said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see Jai laughing and joking with his teammates, it was a really cool environment to be in. We just thought that it was really important that we bring Jai in for Jai.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing was it was a great opportunity to celebrate Jai\u2019s career. We all know the journey that he\u2019s embarking on, and it\u2019s going to be a really tough one. <\/p>\n

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Vossy emotional ahead of 1st Origin call | 02:33<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all there for him as Queenslanders, as members of the rugby league community.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the day, he\u2019s also retiring from rugby league, and we can\u2019t forget that. So us as Queenslanders, we certainly acknowledged our player 196 last night and celebrated what he brought in the Maroon jersey, so that was a pretty cool time as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrow announced his immediate retirement from rugby league alongside his devastating diagnosis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jai Arrow has arrived at Accor Stadium with the Maroons squad in emotional scenes only days after he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-697743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697743","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=697743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}