THE resolve at the AFL to accelerate not only the development of the women's game but the very involvement of females in the broader aspects of the sport seems to have reached the point where from now on action will be both quick and extensive.
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This week may well be remembered as the point in time when things really changed.
Yesterday the on field control of a TAC Cup roster match was entirely in the hands of female officials. Yes that's right - each field, goal and boundary umpire at the game was a woman and not one of them a token appointment to make up the numbers.
Sure the AFL has seized the moment at the earliest opportunity that a full complement of well-qualified female umpires has become available at this level, to make a point. But it is a point worth making.
It's not out of place - not for a minute. If they have the ability and agility there have every right and expectation to be there.
I recall only too well when we were reforming athletics officiating in Australia in the early 1990s, there was majority opinion that women should not judge throwing events or pole vault. Act as a recorder may be but certainly not referee or be the circle judge in the hammer throw or be in charge of the flags at the pole vault.
It was a nonsense but traditions die hard and it was not as easy as it should have been to have fine women in those roles by the time of the Sydney Olympics. Needless to say plenty of countries who were still in the dark ages in officiating terms, were dismissive, even angry at the sight of "skirts in charge" in 2000.
Proudly in 2015 Australian athletics can boast that it has more women than men among its international officiating panel members.
But the AFL clearly has its sights sets much further afield than presenting women at a high level in its officiating ranks.
AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan wants the AFL to establish a national Women's competition within the next five years. But things are happening even faster than that.
In August the game's free to air broadcaster, Channel Seven will join with the AFL in broadcasting a fully sanctioned match between the Western Bulldogs' and Melbourne's women's teams.
This is the sort of circuit breaker that other women's sports crave but rarely get.
Now a sport in which women's playing participation has been minuscule until now compared to so many others, now leapfrogs them - arguably well ahead of its time in terms of the maturity of the game.
Locally, the Tasmanian Football Council has launched the State's Female Football Academy, with a particular focus on the skills, knowledge and fitness levels required to compete at the elite level in the game.
Of course the AFL is in a position to do it. That it has chosen to do so is significant - not only to diversify its own sport away from an almost exclusively male domain to date but to present a massive and scary challenge to others.
