Five days. Fourteen thousand seats. Three teams separated by three points. One match that could decide everything — and one that, maddeningly, might decide nothing at all.

The arithmetic of the ringball title race has been dissected, debated, and scrawled on the backs of enough bar napkins to wallpaper the Ashwick Oval. But the essential facts bear repeating, because they are genuinely extraordinary.

Caravel Harriers: 51 points. Thornbury Lancers: 49. Ashwick Stoneflies: 48.

On Saturday, the Stoneflies host the Harriers at the Oval. A Stoneflies victory — their fifth consecutive — would take them to 51, level with Caravel. A Caravel win would put the title effectively beyond reach. A draw favours Caravel but keeps the Stoneflies alive heading into the final round.

Meanwhile, in Thornbury, the Lancers host Coldharbour — a match they are expected to win, which would take them to 52 and, depending on Saturday’s other result, could see them leapfrog everyone and win the championship without setting foot on the Ashwick pitch.

Jens Aldric, the Lancers’ imperious centrist, was asked on Monday whether he would be checking the Ashwick scoreboard during his own match.

“I’ll be checking it afterwards,” Aldric said. “During is someone else’s problem.”

The Stoneflies’ rise has been the story of the season’s second half. Four consecutive wins — including the devastating 34-29 victory over the Harriers in Round 22 that ended Caravel’s twenty-three-match unbeaten run — have transformed them from credible outsiders to genuine contenders. The emergence of Fen Barlow, twenty-two years old and playing just his ninth senior match, has given Regan Hollister’s side a dimension they lacked earlier in the season.

Barlow has scored in every match since his debut. His arc is flat and fast — an unusual technique that gives keepers less time to read the trajectory. On Saturday, he will face the finest keeper in the league in Caravel’s defensive line and the most complete centrist in Oska Dain.

Dain, for his part, was characteristically measured when asked about the Stoneflies’ form.

“They beat us,” Dain said of the Round 22 defeat. “We learn, or we deserve to lose again.”

Wil Sørensen, Caravel’s coach, has not lost back-to-back matches to the same opponent in seven years. His tactical adjustment for Saturday — widely expected to involve double-marking Barlow and conceding the lodges to focus on controlling the centreline — may come down to whether Dov Marsden, the Stoneflies’ veteran centrist, can exploit the space that double-marking creates.

Marsden, thirty-six, has played more ringball than anyone else on either roster. He has never won a championship.

“I try not to think about that,” Marsden said on Tuesday morning, in a tone that suggested he thinks about it constantly.

The Ashwick Oval sold out within ninety minutes of tickets going on sale last week. Fourteen thousand seats, no standing. The Stoneflies’ supporters — known for their silence at the start of each quarter and their eruption when the first ring drops — have reportedly been practising both.

One round remains after Saturday. But Saturday might be all that matters.