Gerry Fagan Cup win would be ‘monumental’ says Cullyhanna's Jason Duffy
St Patrick’s Culyhanna are 60 minutes of football away from getting their hands on the Gerry Fagan Cup, and Jason Duffy described what it will be like if they can defeat Madden in the decider this Sunday.
“It would be monumental, to be honest,” he said.
“There's no way really to describe that. I know we put in a massive shift in the Intermediate Championship, getting an All-Ireland out of that, but in the back of your mind, you always knew there was something bigger and something that you wanted more and this is it.
“It would mean everything to the players, family, everyone in the community. It would be massive.”
The village has been buzzing with anticipation, since their remarkable semi-final win over rivals Crossmaglen.
“It’s deadly, like it's so good,” said Duffy, regarding the atmosphere around Cullyhanna.
“We're probably very lucky to be here, if you look at the last game there and the last couple of games. But we just can't wait to get to Sunday and perform, and put in maybe a bit more than 15 minutes or 10 minutes of a performance.
“But now we're really looking forward to it and it's great for the community.”
Speaking of that semi-final win, it was one for the ages. Crossmaglen were superb and dominated throughout, but Cullyhanna found something from within to score the last 10 points and turn the result on its head at the death.
“It was just crazy,” reflected Duffy. “That's probably some of the best football Cross have played for 20, 30, 40 minutes in a long time.
“And there were parts of that game where I was like, ‘I don't know what we're going to do here’. It was just manic, they were kicking everything and between Oisin [O’Neill] and Cian [McConville] it was just so hard to stop.
“But we never gave in. We knew that if we stuck about and put the pressure on, then maybe we could get something in the end.
“Thanks to [Aidan] Nugent kicking them two-pointers in the last quarter of the game, we just about got over the line.”
Despite getting over the line in the semi-final and indeed the quarter-final (after extra-time against St Peter’s) by the skin of their teeth, Duffy knows that his side are in for another tough encounter, when they take on Madden this Sunday.
“I was very impressed with them, watching against Clann Eireann.
“I thought Clann Eireann would have pulled away in the end, but I was very impressed with how aggressive they (Madden) were in their press and how strong they looked around the middle and then obviously with Niall and Conor up top, the boys are very accurate and can score heavily."
The Armagh Senior Championship has been thrilling from start to finish, and one expects there is still some drama to come in this historic final match-up
“It's going well so far, it has been exciting football,” said Duffy.
“The brand of football that every team is playing, not just ourselves, definitely is exciting and you've got really tight games and you've got massive upsets between Madden and ourselves.
“Few would've picked the two of them out, of those two (semi-final) games and it just shows how exciting and what a good place Armagh football is in when you have games like that and shock wins like that.”