Ton travel south to face Stevie Aitken’s league leaders with just one point separating the sides at the top of League One in what is one of the most important matches in the club’s recent history.

If third-placed Forfar were to lose at Dunfermline earlier in the day, the Blues could clinch the title with a win, while a Ton victory would put them two points clear going into the final weekend.

With so much at stake, television channel BBC Alba have selected the match for live coverage, with the kick-off moved back to 5.30pm. Ton boss Duffy reckons the importance of the occasion will make for an intriguing footballing spectacle.

Speaking just prior to training at Parklea, he told the Tele: “This is our biggest game of the season so far, of course. People say ‘this game is so important’ or ‘this game is so important’ about lots of different games over the course of the season. Everybody likes to label a game. It happens. If you’re so many points behind someone, or you can increase your gap on someone, then during the season those games can seem the most important game at the time.

“But as I’ve always said, you get a stage later in the season when the games do come up that those labels are relevant — and this is one of them. We’re at the stage where there is no margin for error. From a footballing perspective it’s match of the day: It’s first and second in the league. We’re travelling down to Stranraer, a notoriously difficult place to go at any time.

“So it all adds up to a dramatic day, an exciting day for football. It’s a footballing spectacle and these games can go one way or the other.

“The two teams can go hammer and tongs or two teams can get a little bit tentative on the day and it become a wee bit of a war of attrition sort of thing. It’s so difficult. No one can call which way it will go. We’ve won the games at Cappielow. They’ve won the first game down at Stranraer.

“There’s just one point separating the teams right over the course of a season, so there’s a very thin line between the two.

“It can go either way, but we know what we have to do: we have to go down there and win the game. And that’s what we’ll attempt to do.” Duffy has seen it all over the course of his 36 years in the game as a player, manager, coach and director of football. The 55-year-old says he is relaxed ahead of the match but isn’t sure if that will quite be the case over the course of the 90 minutes When asked how he was feeling about the big game, he said: “Anybody who knows me knows I don’t get too uptight about situations, but I’m desperate to do well. You want to be successful.

“This is my job and has been for a long time, so you just deal with it the way other people do with their jobs.

“Some days it’s great fun, other days it’s quite traumatic — and I’m sure Saturday will be quite traumatic. But between 5.30pm and 7.30pm will be the time to really see how I feel.

“Before the game I’ll be relaxed. After the game, I don’t know how my emotions will be — that will all depend on the result!” There is one aspect of the match that has already irked the Ton boss and that is the late kick-off time and how the contest could be impacted by the knowledge of how Forfar have fared at Dunfermline.

He added: “I think the wee frustrating thing is the 5.30pm start. I don’t think it’s right. Everyone was talking last week about the Hibs and Rangers situation.

“The SPFL changed it because of sporting integrity. Well, is it only sporting integrity for the top teams?

“I don’t quite get this one. If Forfar lose for instance, Stranraer know that if they beat us they can win the league on the day.

“If we win on Saturday, there’ll still be another game to play to decide things no matter what happens.

“So the Forfar result is not really that relevant to us, because we have to win anyway regardless of what happens there.

“But it could — could — incentivise Stranraer in the sense that it could make it a day for them to win the league. It’s hard to say because obviously if they beat us they put us out the equation anyway.

“But I just don’t think at this stage of the season we should be moving the top two teams to play after everyone else with so much at stake. It’s not ideal but that’s football for you nowadays.

“Whether it’s Alba or any other TV company, they have their rules where they can’t take it earlier because of other games and this kind of stuff. So I understand how it works, I just don’t think it’s an ideal situation.” And with anticipation so high amongst his players, Duffy explained that they would actually rather the game was earlier in the day if anything.

He said: “You’d rather have a 1pm kick-off than 5.30pm and get on with the game earlier. The players are excited and looking forward to it.

“They’ve worked hard all season to put themselves in this position. They’ve been challenging for the title pretty much all through.

“We had a wee sticky patch round about December, but overall we’ve been there or thereabouts and we’ve now got to the stage where there are two games to go in the regular season. So they should be excited. There should be a degree of anticipation and a few nerves in understanding what’s at stake.

“It’s about handling the emotions. You can use it as a positive with the adrenaline rush rather than let it overwhelm you and tense up.

“Ultimately, we have to focus on our game and play to our potential. What you want to do is go down there and perform at your best.

“And if we do that hopefully it will be good enough on the day to come back with the three points. If we do there’s another major match ahead of us.

“There’s a huge amount at stake tomorrow, we understand we’ve got to try and win and all we can do is 100 per cent focus on that.”