Sliotars to be standardised from next year

The 2017 inter-county hurling season will be the last in which non-standardised sliotars are used.

Director of games development Pat Daly said the GAA hopes to launch standardised, micro-chipped sliotars in spring 2018, sometime between St Patrick’s Day and Easter.

Daly’s efforts to regulate the sliotar market go back to the early 2000s and the process of developing a uniform core for the ball is going well, he reports. “We’re standardising the core in an attempt to ensure there is consistency in performance. We’re inserting a chip into the core for traceability. Obviously, it’s a painstaking process. You’re trying to make sure the chip can withstand the hits a sliotar takes. It’s essential the technology holds up to that.”