South Sydney enforcer Jai Arrow has retired immediately after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease, with club CEO Blake Solly delivering the news during a Wednesday press conference.
When South Sydney CEO Blake Solly walked into the room on Wednesday, the most striking thing was who didn’t speak. Jai Arrow sat alongside him in silence, forced to face the reality of a diagnosis that has no cure.
The 30-year-old Rabbitohs forward will retire from the NRL immediately after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Solly revealed the devastating news during the club’s press conference, while Arrow remained quiet throughout as the decision became final.
Arrow’s time at South Sydney was recent but meaningful. Wayne Bennett lured the “classy forward” to the club in 2021 after Brisbane gave him his first-grade debut a decade earlier, when he was 25. Since joining the Rabbitohs, Arrow has played 98 games.
The timing of the diagnosis lands on the heels of a personal life that had been building toward a future together. Arrow proposed to his fiancée, Berina Colakovic, during a romantic post-season holiday in Italy in October 2024. In December, the couple shared on Instagram that they were expecting their first child. Their daughter, Ayla Rae, was born in April 2025.
Before the move to Souths, Arrow spent two seasons with the Broncos and then four seasons at Gold Coast. He also played 12 games for Queensland between 2018 and 2023, helping the Maroons win series in 2020, 2022 and 2023. His representative career included a difficult emotional chapter too: Arrow featured for Queensland after playing in the Rabbitohs’ 2021 grand final loss to Penrith.
There’s another layer of grief hanging over this moment in league. Arrow’s diagnosis comes two and a half years after former Maroons hardman Carl Webb died of motor neurone disease at 42. The rugby league world was also rocked when Western Suburbs. Balmain and North Sydney great Scott Gale died of the condition in 2004. aged 39.
For South Sydney and for a rugby league community already familiar with the way MND ends careers and lives. Arrow’s retirement is being reported as immediate. It is a sudden stop for a player still just 30—one that arrives with family at the center. and with memories of milestones shared in Italy and on Instagram now replaced by the certainty of losing time.
Jai Arrow South Sydney Rabbitohs motor neurone disease NRL Blake Solly Berina Colakovic Ayla Rae Carl Webb Scott Gale