Eoin Murphy: Return to white sliotar - and don't make it heavier

Jack O'Connor of Cork shoots past Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy to score a goal in the All-Ireland semi-final. Murphy has said the ball should not be made heavier despite scoring rates increasing. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy hopes Limerick’s high-scoring feats aren’t used as a reason to change the weight of the sliotar.

Murphy has been asked for his input by fellow county man and former Cats chairman and secretary Ned Quinn, who currently heads up the sliotar advisory group.

Glenmore man Murphy is all for the standardisation of the sliotar, and would like to see the rims reduced for safety reasons, as well as the regulation colour at senior inter-county level return from yellow to white.

But he would consider a heavier sliotar as a retrograde move, and ignorant of the high level of strength and athletic work teams like All-Ireland champions Limerick are doing now.

“Obviously, the idea of standardising the sliotar is that teams can’t use their own one, whatever it is,” he said.

“Take the last six or seven years, there has been a slow increase in the average score in games. There just come games when it’s completely open, and it takes on a life of its own.

Avonmore Protein Milk are teaming up with Kilkenny hurler Eoin Murphy to launch the new Avonmore Pro-Oats product. Picture: Sam Barnes

“There are some games where you don’t have that free-scoring element to it, but are you just going to look back on the All-Ireland final when Limerick were phenomenal and say: ‘Oh, we need to bring in a new sliotar because they were too good, they were scoring too much?’

“I’m not too sure if I agree with that. It’s a tough one.”

The rise in scoring reflects what players are doing to prepare for games, not the weight of the sliotar, according to the three-time All-Ireland winner.

“Guys are in the gym two or three nights a week, and there has never been more access to strength and conditioning knowledge and nutrition and doing proper exercises,” said Murphy. “So it’s not a case of me going down to the gym and doing standard lifts — we’re actually doing exercises for the specific movements we’re doing during the game.

“You take the football — has the football changed? Guys are able to kick the ball over the bar from 50-60 yards. You see Niall Morgan in the semi-final, I think he kicked the ball over the bar from 60 yards. Are you trying to tell me that football has gone different?”

Murphy believes larger rims would lead to hand injuries, while he wants the traditional white ball back.

“The yellow one, when you were playing under the lights, and I know it’s a bit different in Croke Park because the standard of the lights are different to other county grounds, but once it goes into the lights, you’re not going to see it.

“Maybe the bit of the traditionalist in me [means] I prefer the white sliotar. We were playing Cork this year, a really bright day, a lovely day, you’ve the sun shining on the grass, so there is a sort of a yellow element or look to it, and you have the ball pinging around. In my opinion, it [the yellow ball] is a small bit more difficult to see.”