Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera could be in Port Adelaide colours right now if a sliding door had gone in another direction.
Instead, he will be central in Josh Carr's planning as the Power coach tries to put the clamps on the St Kilda superstar at Marvel Stadium on Saturday.
It is a crucial clash for both sides' finals chances, with the Saints (7-9) and Port (6-10) still hopeful of claiming a wildcard spot under the new format.
Wanganeen-Milera looms as the key figure after shredding Port with 28 disposals and two goals when they met in round five.
The silky playmaker has hit a rich vein of form in his past two outings, setting career-best disposal records (44 and 46) in performances that have left teammates in awe.
"He's a star, he's a freak talent," Saints midfielder Marcus Windhager told AAP.
"It's insane his white-line fever when he runs out and how badly he wants to help this team win.
"It's hard not to give the ball to him when he's streaming past because he's so talented and he can pull off some amazing kicks.
"He just opens up the game for us with his run and wants to take it on, so we'd be stupid not to put the ball in his hands."
Port actively tried to lure SA product Wanganeen-Milera back to his home state last year and will almost certainly do so again, with his latest contract up at the end of 2027.
The 23-year-old is an increasingly attractive prospect as he adds further strings to his bow, including working through close attention from taggers this season.
Whether Carr sends a defensive minder, such as Willem Drew, to Wanganeen-Milera remains to be seen.
"He had a bit of challenge at the start of the year with taggers, but just worked through it, and now he's just putting them to the sword every week," Windhager said.
"A lot of it is around the group helping Nas, supporting him, looking for him and putting a bit of work into the tagger with a few blocks.
"And Nas has got a few mechanisms that he can pull to go forward or go back.
"He's worked very closely with Ross (Lyon) and 'Harvs' (Robert Harvey) as the midfield coach to be able to work through that."
After thumping bottom side Essendon last week, the Saints are bullish about their prospects of climbing into the finals places with a favourable run towards September.
"It's such a driven young group and we've had a lot of conversations around building towards pushing for finals," Windhager said.
"If we put together performances like how we played in the first half (against Essendon), then we can definitely do that.
"We've got a nice run home playing at Marvel Stadium a lot and not leaving Victoria, so it's exciting. We just need to knuckle down and really play our way."
St Kilda named an unchanged line-up, while Port recalled Kane Farrell from a groin injury in place of Brandon Zerk-Thatcher.
