By Shaun Casey

THERE could be no debate or controversy surrounding the choice for the man of the match in the Armagh SFC final on Sunday. Madden star Darragh McMullen accepted the award after putting in a phenomenal performance.

His early two-pointer helped set the tone for the Raparees, but it was his work away from the goalpost that allowed him to standout. Hassling back, winning break balls, driving his side forward, there was very little that McMullen didn’t do to get his side over the line.

McMullen’s rise has been amazing. 2025 marked his breakthrough year in Kieran McGeeney’s Armagh team and he carried that outstanding county form into the club championship, finishing the campaign as a county champion.

“It still hasn’t sunk in, it doesn’t feel real at all, and I don’t know what to think,” McMullen said after the full-time whistle, having defeated Cullyhanna 0-20 to 0-9.

“The man of the match, that took me by surprise because you don’t really think about those things but it’s a brilliant achievement and I’m happy for myself, my family and my teammates.”

Cullyhanna have been hailed as the comeback kings this season, but Madden’s gameplan stifled any hope of a revival. They controlled possession, played keep ball at times, and took their scores when they were on.

“It was similar enough to Clann Eireann. We went at it hard in the first half and that set us up going into the second half. Cullyhanna came back and we knew they were going to.

“They got some big scores and the crowd got behind them, but we just settled ourselves about 10 or 15 minutes into the second half. It took us a while to get going but we were just chipping in with simple scores, and we were glad to get over the line.”

While the attacking arsenal Madden have was of huge importance as they reached their target of 20 points on the day, the defensive effort was just as key.

Madden kept Aidan Nugent, the top scorer in the SFC, scoreless from play and tied down Jason Duffy and Ross McQuillan as well.

“With the new rules, it’s a new target. If you’re hitting 20 points you have a great chance of winning the game but this last couple of weeks with the weather changing, games have been finishing with a winning score of maybe 14 points.

“But we did target during the week that 20 points would win the game, especially with the scoring threats that Cullyhanna have. I suppose we just got lucky to hit the 20-point mark on the dot.

McMullen continued, “Every talks about our attackers but when you look at the stats, it comes down to our defence. We were keeping teams to an average of 11 or 12 points again and that showed in the final.

“Our defence has been tight all year, and we trust those boys to pick up key men on the other team and they done that again.”