Taking hurling to the next level

It’s a common sight in inter-county hurling these days: a player soloing the ball hops it off the ground and collects it.

A crafty piece of skill, it’s also an ingenious means of fashioning a new possession so that the ball can be taken to hand a second time. In Nowlan Park at the weekend, both Conor McDonald and Kevin Moran pulled it off. If you didn’t see them doing their thing, boy were you unlucky.

What would Ring think? He’d probably smile. There’s nothing in the Official Guide against it as much as you might wonder if it was in the thinking of the rulemakers when they sat down to form the parameters of the game.