2007 All Star Paddy Bradley understands why Derry employed the tactics they did in last Saturday night's infamous league encounter against Dublin.

The 33-year-old former Oak Leaf ace is not a fan of the defensive route that gaelic football has taken but, in an interview with The Irish Daily Star, he asks: "Did anybody really believe that Derry were going to go down there and get rolled over by 15 or 20 points again?

"It wasn't going to do their morale any favours for the championship.

"I'm sure they (Dublin) had a fair idea that that's how they were going to be set up. The one thing that disappointed me was that whenever the game was four-all, would Derry not have tried to push on and get the win?

"It seemed as if they were happy enough to go down by a few points - so it was a moral victory as such.

"To say that Dublin set up the same - yes they did, but I think Dublin are trying new things.

"Because in the past when teams such as Donegal last year set up defensively and they went gung-ho and were caught on the break, I think maybe Dublin knew going in that Derry would do that and they used it as an experiment to see how they could play the defensive system themselves and could they break from deep.

"I just know as a spectacle at the minute, it's doing nothing for our game."

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