Good luck breaking Ireland’s newest hurls

Good enough for Seamus Callanan, good enough for anyone.

The new Reynolds composite hurls, designed by the Tipperary star along with Richie Hogan and Neil McManus, have boldly changed the game but they've come in response to Ireland's ash dieback issue. Designed to offer the same feel, the option to still sand them, and a guarantee of more durability, the new design by Reynolds Sports is the real deal. SportsJOE acquired some of these composite hurls to put them to the test. Two traditional hurlers - one from Galway, one from Tipperary - put their ash down for the first time and tried out the Reynolds hurls and, whilst at first they had their doubts, they soon got used to the new design. But one of these bad boys are a lot tougher to snap in the pull. https://www.instagram.com/p/BWxMAqkFbb7/?taken-by=sportsjoedotie Seamus Callanan has been playing with Tipp for almost a decade now and he's well aware of the preciousness that hurlers have over their sticks. It's tough to replace when you get your eye and touch in with a hurl. When himself, McManus and Hogan designed the composite equivalent to what the GAA has been used to until now, they kept in mind the balance, the size of the bas, the handles and the flexibility. You can band the hurls, and sand them as well to make them lighter in different parts.

"People will be skeptical and we respect that," Callanan said. "But we firmly believe that we've put the right mix together to produce a product that you can rely on and that you can have trust in. "It's not your normal plastic or composite hurley. I think it's the future."

So we gave it to SportsJOE's resident hurlers to see how they got on. Their only complaints was that the grass wasn't long enough for their tricks... The grass. Right.