Dov Marsden was twenty when the Ashwick Stoneflies last won the championship. He is thirty-six now. He has played through relegation battles and mid-table mediocrity and two coaching changes and an era in which Caravel Harriers won everything and Ashwick Oval half-emptied on wet Saturday afternoons.

“Sixteen years,” Marsden said on Friday. “I have been waiting sixteen years. I don’t intend to wait any longer.”

He is not the only one. Fourteen thousand tickets for Saturday’s match — every seat in Ashwick Oval — sold out in forty minutes when they went on sale last week. Approximately eight hundred Caravel supporters are expected. A temporary barrier has been installed at the southern end. The gates open at one o’clock. Drop is at three.

The Permutations

The table entering Round 25: Caravel Harriers 51 points, Thornbury Lancers 49, Ashwick Stoneflies 48. One round remains after this.

If Caravel win or draw at Ashwick Oval, the title returns to Caravel regardless of other results. Their three-point lead with one round remaining would be mathematically unassailable.

If Ashwick win and the Lancers lose to Coldharbour at home, the Stoneflies go to 51 — level with Caravel on points but ahead on the head-to-head record (34-29 victory on 22 February). Ashwick would be champions with one round to spare.

If Ashwick win and the Lancers also win, all three sides go into the final round separated by two points — Caravel 51, Lancers 52, Ashwick 51. The title would be decided on Round 26.

Ashwick, in other words, must win. Everything else is noise.

Barlow Against Dain

This is the match within the match. Fen Barlow, twenty-two, the breakout star of the season, against Oska Dain, arguably the finest ringball player in the league. Barlow has scored in five consecutive matches and eleven rings in the past six rounds. Dain has three rings and six assists in Caravel’s last four. When these sides met in Round 22, Barlow scored two and Dain one in a 34-29 Ashwick victory that ended Caravel’s twenty-three-match unbeaten run.

“He is the best I have played against,” Barlow said of Dain. “But the ring is the same size for both of us.”

Dain, who arrived in Ashwick on Thursday and was seen walking the Oval pitch in the afternoon light, has not spoken publicly this week. His coach, Wil Sørensen, said only: “Oska does not need to speak. He speaks on the pitch.”

The Oval

Ashwick Oval is not the largest ringball ground in the country, but on its day it is the loudest. The crowd wraps around the pitch on three sides, pressed close to the touchline; the temporary southern stand, installed for this fixture, brings the fourth side within fifteen metres.

Regan Hollister, the Stoneflies coach, has had the pitch rolled twice this week and the ring re-aligned after a mid-week windstorm shifted the post two degrees. “That is two degrees that could change a match,” he said. “We are not leaving anything to chance.”

Marsden will captain from the centre. Maren Thatch keeps. Petra Venn locks. Barlow plays the right lodge. The starting six has not changed in four matches — the longest unchanged run of Hollister’s tenure.

“We know who we are,” Hollister said. “Now we play.”

One round remains after Saturday. But Saturday feels like the season.