Hot on the heels of the BLK Ospreys ‘Batjersey’ we reviewed yesterday comes the second entry into the Australian firm’s range of DC Superhero shirts. Connacht have been with BLK longer than any other Northern Hemisphere team, and it’s pretty fitting then, that the men in green get perhaps the most striking superhero shirt the company has produced.

The melding of the Green Lantern and Connacht’s colours is so obvious that the meeting to decide which DC the men from Galway would get for their special jersey must have lasted all of seven minutes, and that includes the time taken to finish off the tea and biscuits. Connacht’s colours are green and dark blue, the Lantern’s colours are green and black… and what we have here is a clever mix of all three, with the black parts of the jersey having a definite blue-y hue to them.

Thankfully, while the meeting to pick the theme must have been Superman-taking-a-leak quick, clearly a lot more thought and care has gone into the design – it’s a beautiful thing, and one of our favourite superhero shirt designs we’ve seen in either code over the last few years.

Like the Ospreys BatJersey, there’s a definite armour vibe about the basic design here, with the plates and panels around the shoulders giving it more of a feel of the New 52 Green Lantern than Hal Jordan’s more classic, spandex-y look. We’re equally pleased that despite many superhero jerseys favouring to follow the movies as far as the basic design goes, they’ve steered well clear of anything that reminds us of the utterly dreadful Ryan Reynolds suit/film, though a glowing lantern on the front of the shirt would have been pretty awesome if the technology existed to do such a thing…

We love the way the Green Lantern Corps logo sits so well in the middle of the chest, smack bang in the middle of the sponsors and club crest. It gives the shirt a nice symmetry, that’s only enhanced by the prevalence of white on the sponsors. We’ve been big fans of the comic-style ‘hand drawn’ effect of the BLK superhero jerseys, and this is probably the best example we’ve seen so far. The accents and the shading around the abs and the shoulders really does give the effect that the shirt has been drawn, and that sense is multiplied when the jersey’s on the field.

If there’s one slight niggle we have, it’s to do with the bottom of the shirt – the black sections around the waist reflect the way the Green Lantern costume blends into black leggings, however, Connacht don’t have black shorts in their locker, and it seems that they’ll be rocking green ones instead when they wear this shirt. We think it looks a bit odd, and we wonder if the dark blue away shorts would look a bit better… maybe not, but as we said, it’s a very minor niggle.

This is another absolutely awesome jersey from BLK, which Connacht will be wearing it for their game against Munster on the 28 November, and we can’t wait to see it on the field. Rarely has the superhero jersey concept melded so well with a clubs colours and general design philosophy.

SHIT/GOOD RATING: Green Lantern’s light!