A whole new ball game?

GAA chiefs will next week unveil new changes to standardise how sliotars are produced and manufactured  

To ascertain the preferred sliotar, 14 players, seven county including Jason Forde (Tipperary), Alan Nolan (Dublin) and Rory O’Connor (Wexford) and seven club, tested sliotars from 11 different suppliers in Croke Park. They were asked to give a rating to each ball on criteria such as feel and strike. The identity of the manufacturers were never made known to them.

It isn’t trite to say this is a whole new ball game. The sliotars recently delivered to the GAA, which will be unveiled next week, are nothing like hurling has seen before.

Smart or digital, call them what you want but they are different. With a chip or a tag inserted in the core, match officials will be able to detect the provenance of the ball simply by holding their phone beside it using an authentication app.