NO-ONE at Alberton - as much as some would like - configures the AFL fixture. But the question of "who has Port Adelaide played" to chalk up a league-leading 2-0 start is not as relevant as "how Port Adelaide is playing".
Port Adelaide has won admirers with the style of football it has presented so far this season in backing up its 2020 AFL minor premiership with more depth to its playbook and player list.
Now the question is: How will this attacking - league-best for scoring - game hold up while the fixture serves up two mature and proven teams in West Coast and AFL premier Richmond over six days?
"We can't lose sight that West Coast is a great team ... but we're a good team (too)," says Port Adelaide ruckman - and West Coast premiership hero - Scott Lycett.
"A team that runs hard, gets to as many contests as we can and, like West Coast, we pride ourselves on our work at the stoppages as well.
"There is a reason why we think we are a good team - and we have to back ourselves in."
Port Adelaide returns to Perth Stadium to face West Coast for the first time since the Good Friday "dirty ball" victory on Good Friday in 2019.
"Anyone who goes to West Coast and beats them on their home deck in Perth is a good team," added Lycett, who faced his silent West Coast team-mates for the first time in that 42-point win.
"If we can come home with the four (premiership) points people will definitely stop saying we have only played teams that might be lower on the ladder this year.
"We played in a preliminary final last year, so we know we are a good team. For everyone else to figure out we are a good team this year, we do have to go to Perth and get the four points ... and after we focus on this game, it is Richmond.
"The next two games will tell us where we really are."
Port Adelaide-West Coast recently have contradicted the concept home-field advantage, particularly in Perth, counts most. Port Adelaide has a 3-1 win-loss record against West Coast in the Western Australian capital since 2014 and beat the Eagles on neutral territory at Carrara last season.
Considering West Coast has won all five games against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, the masters of the AFL fixture might have smiled on Ken Hinkley's crew by sending them across the Nullarbor this weekend.
This game marks Port Adelaide's first test in 2021 of its high-scoring game against a team that qualified for last year's top-eight finals and that wants to press, with Port Adelaide, for a top-four finish this season.
"This is a great test for us," says Port Adelaide forwards coach Nathan Bassett who will manage the work of five talls rolling through the forward-50 arc. "So far we have played four times (Adelaide twice in the pre-season and North Melbourne and Essendon) and been well in control at half-time.
"West Coast is a very good side, fifth at the end of the home-and-away season last year. So this is a good challenge for our players".
Nine of the 44 spots on each team sheet will be taken by talls, five on Port Adelaide's 22.
Port Adelaide with Scott Lycett and Peter Ladhams working in ruck (and resting in attack) against Nic Naitanui and the pinch-hitting Oscar Allen (rather than Nathan Vardy). Port Adelaide with a new-look attack with All-Australian Charlie Dixon, Todd Marshall and West Australian draftee Mitch Georgiades while West Coast adds Oscar Allen to the proven tandem between Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling.
Supply to each of these tall attacks will hang heavily on the work that unfolds after former team-mates Naitanui and Lycett battle in ruck.
"Everyone who goes up against Nic Nat tries to do as much study as they can to see where they can get him to nullify his influence," said Lycett, who has the advantage of working against Naitanui during training while playing 75 AFL games as a premiership winner at West Coast from 2011-2018.
"He is one of the greats and really hard to stop when he is up and going. If you are not prepared, you are in some strife. We have been doing a lot of work this week.
"A lot of people would like to know the secret of how to beat Nic Nat. Even if you have a plan that does not mean you will pull it off. He is great with follow-up work. That is my strength as well and I am going to have to match him in that area, particularly when he has had a lot of clearances in recent weeks.
"The thing with Nic Nat is he wants you to keep doing the same thing against him while he is so smart and so experienced that he will figure out how to beat you. I am going to have to change a few things up and see how I go."
West Coast will be the team that puts credibility against Port Adelaide's status as the AFL's early bench mark.
"West Coast has been announced as a good team for a long time - and we are trying to get to that point where they have been every year, a consistently top side," Hinkley said. "They play a distinct style. And we know this game goes the whole way - Port Adelaide-West Coast games do that."
