GAA president Larry McCarthy has said the new ‘smart sliotar’ maintains the integrity of hurling while ensuring that child labour is not exploited in their production.
The sliotar contains a microchip in its core which referees can read using a mobile phone app to ensure that the ball is verified. The GAA first made moves towards standardising the sliotar in 2003, with many rogue products having been in circulation for years.
The new ball will be used in this year’s All-Ireland under-20 Championship before being rolled out at senior level next year. In practice, 24 sliotars, supplied by the GAA and verified pre-match by the referee, will be in ‘bins’ at either end of the ground for goalkeepers to draw from.
A nine-strong ‘Sliotar Workgroup’ chaired by former Kilkenny chairman Ned Quinn and also featuring Croke Park’s director of games administration and research Pat Daly and ex-Tipperary goalkeeper Brendan Cummins met some 22 times since last summer.
The smart sliotar also goes a long way towards eliminating illegal use of the official GAA logo and meets ethical production and supply chain practices as determined by the World Federation of the Sports Goods Industry (WFSGI).
McCarthy said: “I think it's a work in progress in terms of making sure we have integrity in the sliotar, integrity in our equipment, and, perhaps most importantly, in our manufacturing systems.
“That we're not using child labour or anything around the world that would be incorrect because most of them come from Pakistan, Sailkot in Pakistan.
“I thank the committee for all the work they have done, Pat has done a huge amount of work with them, 28 or 29 meetings, and this is where we are. And hopefully it'll be a step in the right direction in terms of maintaining the integrity of the game.”
Amid concerns about the spiralling scoring tallies in hurling with the ball travelling farther than ever, the workgroup has resisted calls to make the sliotar heavier.
Professor Kieran Moran of DCU, another member of the work group, commented: “If you produce a ball that's slightly heavier, it will travel further. People have a perception that if you produce a lighter ball it will travel further, but it's the opposite.
“If it's a heavier ball it travels further because it'll knock the air molecules out of the way if you want to get into the science of it.”
It’s believed that hurling is the first field sport in the world to use a microchip for verification purposes though Professor Moran said that moving into the area of goal line technology is “a different technology altogether”.
He added: “It would be a heavier technology and at the moment there are no systems out there that would be able to do that accurately without changing how the ball behaves. This is merely around being able to identify that this is an official sliotar.”
Two manufacturers, O’Neill’s and PDMR (Greenfields), have expressed an interest in producing the new smart sliotar and will supply them for this year’s under-20 Championship. The sliotar production market is a very crowded one, however, and several others are expected to come on board in due course.
The specifications for the sliotar were signed off on at last month’s GAA Congress and are as follows:
- Sliotar diameter (not including the rim) between 69-72mm.
- Mass of sliotar between 110-116 grams.
- Rim height between 1.8mm-2.6mm.
- Rim width between 3.6-5.4mm.
- Thickness of the leather (chrome or synthetic) cover shall be between 1.8-2.7mm; laminated coating no greater than 0.15mm.
- Sliotars will only be approved for use based on compliance with standards and tests as set out by Central Council.
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