{"id":711970,"date":"2026-06-03T06:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T06:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/711970\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T06:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T06:03:09","slug":"jai-arrow-set-for-special-role-at-afl-mnd-big-freeze-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/711970\/","title":{"rendered":"Jai Arrow set for special role at AFL MND ‘Big Freeze’ game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently MND-diagnosed NRL star Jai Arrow has been asked to toss the coin at the AFL’s ‘Big Freeze’ MND fundraiser match on King’s Birthday.<\/p>\n

Arrow retired from rugby league immediately after announcing his Motor Neurone Disease diagnosis on May 20.<\/p>\n

Five days later, Australian of the Year winner and AFL legend Neale Daniher succumbed to the insidious illness, after 13 years of campaigning and raising funds to fight it.<\/p>\n

The King’s Birthday AFL clash between Melbourne<\/a> and Collingwood<\/a> has morphed into the ‘Big Freeze’ concept, with all funds raised going to FightMND charity.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0\u2018What I need isn’t sympathy or sadness\u2019: Jai Arrow announces heartbreaking retirement after MND diagnosis<\/a><\/p>\n

Arrow will fly back from neurological wellness retreat overseas to be a guest of Collingwood at the AFL blockbuster, reports Tom Morris.<\/p>\n

He has also been asked to toss the coin, but it is unknown if he has accepted the honour.<\/p>\n

During\u00a0Rabbitohs<\/a>‘ pre-season training in November, Arrow felt pain in his neck and shoulder – with an injury in those areas initially thought to be the issue.<\/p>\n

When the exact injury couldn’t be diagnosed, further tests were conducted and alarm bells started to ring when Arrow’s speech started to be affected.<\/p>\n

Arrow spoke of the moment he was diagnosed with MND and mentioned about the impairment he has noticed in his verbal communication.<\/p>\n

“I laughed,” Arrow told 9NEWS of when he discovered he was suffering from MND.<\/p>\n

“Not that I laughed, but my first question was ‘all right, where do I go now?’<\/p>\n

“[It has] progressed from November until now.<\/p>\n

“Speech is one of those things [that is different].”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently MND-diagnosed NRL star Jai Arrow has been asked to toss the coin at the AFL’s ‘Big Freeze’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-711970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711970","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=711970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}