Melbourne captain Max Gawn has expressed his support for Jai Arrow, a former NRL star who recently revealed he has been diagnosed with motor neuron disease (MND). Gawn described Arrow as “one of us” following the shocking news.
Gawn and the Demons have been heavily involved in Neale Daniher’s FightMND campaign for the past 13 years. On Monday, they will take part in the FreezeMND match against Collingwood at the MCG.
Daniher passed away in May after a 13-year battle with MND. He raised millions of dollars to help find a cure and increase awareness about the disease. Just a week before his passing, Arrow announced his own diagnosis, which forced him to retire from the NRL at the age of 30.
“I have seen the news. Unfortunately, any sort of news around MND is never good,” Gawn said. “And when you see the headline, ‘NRL player retires due to MND diagnosis,’ and then you hear the speech that’s already gone away, you just go back to the work that Neale did and how important it is.”
Gawn mentioned hearing Garry Lyon speak during the week, referencing a quote from Daniher: “Fight on.” He said it was now their turn to continue the fight.
“We all thought, ‘What’s going to happen when Neale’s no longer with us? What’s going to happen to FightMND? What’s going to happen to the Big Freeze?’ But what’s going to happen is we’re going to keep it going. We have to because that was the message that got sold to us by a guy who beat a life expectancy by 10 years. And now we’ve got another guy (Arrow) who’s not in the AFL, but in Australian sport, so you feel like he’s one of us that’s now suffering from the disease and it’s another chance to get behind someone in need.”
West Australian football legend Bryan Cousins, father of Brownlow Medallist Ben Cousins, revealed over the weekend that he has been battling MND for the past year.
Gawn shared his emotional journey following Daniher’s passing. “It’s been an interesting couple of days. Still definitely in a bit of grief and what comes with that,” he said.
“The first day I was definitely thinking about the last time I saw him and could I have given him another hug. When you have him for 12 years and he’s beaten the life expectancy of the disease by 10 years, you just think he’s going to be around forever so you sort of take it for granted that he’s there. So those were my initial thoughts.”
Gawn also reflected on the inspiration he found in Daniher’s legacy. “I thought ‘could I have seen him more and done more?’ Then I went into it because everyone was posting all sorts of inspirational videos of him talking to us and Collingwood and his speeches and so I started to get inspired and I started to get like, ‘jeez, how good was this guy? I can’t wait to honour him.’”
Gawn has taken on a larger role in supporting the FightMND campaign in 2026. He will team up with McCain at the MCG on Monday to raise money for the cause.
“Not only can you grab a beanie for the FightMND organisation, which is great. It’s a bit of a baby blue colour this year, but there’s also a chance if you’re at the ‘G, which I’m hoping there’s 100,000 or just under, you can go get yourself a cup of McCain chips, and a dollar from every chip box goes to FightMND,” Gawn said.
“Hopefully that’s a hundred thousand dollars that McCain will be donating to FightMND. And then I mean I know my kids will be having double, so that could be two hundred thousand dollars if there’d be people getting two serves. And if you can’t do that, I’m at Fed Square on June 2 in a chip truck. Same concept, money getting raised to FightMND. And if you can’t do that, you can go to Coles and just get a bag of McCain chips and 10 cents goes to FightMND. So that’s our job now. Our job’s to raise as much money as we can.”
Melbourne will be looking to bounce back from recent losses to GWS and the Western Bulldogs when they face Collingwood on King’s Birthday Monday. Collingwood, meanwhile, lost to the Dogs on Saturday night and are currently outside the top 10.
