Dublin hurler Ryan O'Dwyer has been playing with a synthetic hurley since 2009.
The Tipperary native says one of the advantages of using a plastic hurley is that each one is exactly the same, so it's not a major problem when one gets broken:
"I wouldn't be able to go back to using ash," he told The Irish Independent. "When you break an ash hurley, it turns your game upside down. I've had times when you have the perfect hurley and you're on cloud nine and you're flying it.
"Then you break it and you feel like someone's after dying, it turns your confidence inside out. When you break a Cultec, and it's rare enough that you would, you can pick up another one that's the exact same and continue on as normal.
"I got a good bit of grief at first and still get some today about using a plastic hurley and all that but it works for me and thousands of other people, particularly at club level, so if you haven't used one then you shouldn't judge them."
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