Sean Cavanagh has claimed that Gaelic football is now like basketball, and fears that 2012 will turn into another ugly season for spectators.

With the start of the NFL just over a week away, the Tyrone star is urging Croke Park to take measures to stop teams from copying the ultra-defensive tactics that were deployed by teams like Donegal and Dublin last year.

"It's gone to the stage where everything is about power, strength, conditioning," the 2008 Footballer of the Year said.

"Gaelic football now is essentially basketball, 12 men behind the ball and a couple up front. Positions mean very little and it is more important now to be a tackler than it is to be a scorer.

"Whether that takes a bit of the beauty of the flair out of the game that inside forwards have, probably. I'm sure the GAA will maybe look at it if it is an ugly season in terms of spectator sport. The GAA will need to take a look at it and see what way they can change it.

"At least in basketball there is a shot clock. The ball has to go at some stage. In GAA, the way some teams are playing, they will hold the ball for minutes, minutes and minutes nowhere near the goal.

"It doesn't make it pretty but it's unfortunately where the sport finds itself at. The template was put out last year by the Dublins and Donegals and teams like that. Every team will copy it this year, no doubt, and it's going to be interesting to see how it will pan out."

Cavanagh is hoping to return from a career-threatening shoulder injury for Tyrone's NFL clash with Louth in six weeks' time. He suffered the injury while lifting weights in preparation for the International Rules series.

"I'm 28, it was the first time I had done maximum bench press," he explained.

"I didn't know what sort of level to go to. Danny Hughes was doing weights with myself and Ciarán McKeever. Danny hadn't even started yet, he is some sort of a freak of nature when it comes to bench pressing. He was only starting at 120 (kgs]), myself and Ciarán were starting at 80. It was a wee bit of bravado almost, 'we'll try and go as hard as we can here'. It snapped at 120, I heard the snap on my shoulder. It was a really freak injury, it was only diagnosed after two or three X-rays." Tweet

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