Rachael Sporn, Erin Phillips and Juliet Haslam are at the centre of Port Adelaide's journey into the AFLW. Image: AFL Photos.

Season 7 of the national AFLW - the first to feature the Port Adelaide Football Club and all 18 national league clubs - looks like it will begin in August.

Still to be resolved is the collective bargaining agreement between the AFL and the players' union (which is pushing for a 107 per cent pay increase and a commitment to full-time professionalism for AFLW players in 2026); draft dates and the fixture.

"I know the clubs and our female players, as we go to 18 teams this season, want to know exact specifics," said AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan on Friday.

So do the fans, the broadcasters, the venue operators, the airlines and travel agents  ...

"We've just got to get this (CBA) deal done with the players' association," adds McLachlan.

A packed house took in the first Showdown at Adelaide Oval in 2014. Image: AFL Photos.

At Alberton, where the finishing touches are being put on the major redevelopment of the Williams Family Stand on the oval's western side, the whiteboard in AFLW chief Juliet Haslam's office has some specifics. The AFLW program will start pre-season training after the June long weekend.

But how will - or how should - Port Adelaide begin its national women's league story?

A Showdown with the neighbourhood rival at Adelaide Oval on Friday, August 25 ... or, as Port Adelaide board member Darren Cahill has suggested, at Alberton Oval? The rivalry already has its own edge - rather than a need to lean on the AFL template - by the notable defections of Justine Mules, Angela Foley and (in a homecoming) Erin Phillips.

Does the AFLW fixture repeat the 1997 AFL calendar that kept the much-anticipated (and unforgettable) first men's Showdown derby until round 4?

Or will inaugural Port Adelaide AFL coach Lauren Arnell and her history makers in the club's first AFLW team be on the road - as it was for every other senior Port Adelaide team writing the first pages of their history in a new league?

The men were at Kensington Oval on Saturday May 12, 1877 when Port Adelaide started the SA Football Association (now SANFL) story as a foundation club with a 3-0 win.

The men were at the MCG on Saturday March 29, 1997 when Port Adelaide became the first (and still only) club promoted from State ranks to the national AFL competition. The opponent was Collingwood, the supposed "brother in arms" when the clubs were not rivals but soul mates in black and white.

Port Adelaide's AFL journey began on the road, with a clash against Collingwood at the MCG. Image: AFL Photos.

If it is not a Showdown - and whether the start is at home or away - who makes for the natural first rival? Brisbane because of Arnell's past, along with that of recent signing Maria Moloney?

However Port Adelaide's football playing diary is written for the first 18-team AFLW fixture, the calendar will this year have the club - one club with three league teams - involved in matches for premiership points across the AFL, SANFL and AFLW from late March to just before Christmas every year.

Those who have questioned why Port Adelaide put China before entering the AFLW are now satisfied. And there is the undeniable thought that Port Adelaide's off-shore ventures have made the club commercially stronger to fully underwrite the football program in the AFL ... and next in the AFLW.

While Port Adelaide was the first in South Australia to address the AFLW option - after AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan advanced the start date of the national women's competition from 2020 to 2017 - there was a none-too-subtle hint from AFL House to let such ambitions slide.

"We had no choice," says Port Adelaide chief executive Matthew Richardson of the AFLW v China question. "Our agenda was full (with the pressing need to find new commercial revenue streams). Don't think we have not reflected on this and asked if we missed a trick. The truth is, we were not in the AFLW conversation to start with."

Now every AFL club is in the AFLW league.

Justine Mules is one of three former Crows to make the move to Alberton, igniting intrigue around the first AFLW Showdown. Image: Matt Sampson.

Timing is everything. Patience definitely is a virtue in football.

In 2015, the AFL was not prepared to have any South Australian-based AFLW team arguing the talent base in Adelaide was too weak to allow for a competitive national league team.

Today, Port Adelaide will build its inaugural AFLW squad with the game's greatest player, Erin Phillips, surrounded by the best under-age talent ever developed in South Australia. The best of the SA under-18 team that was unbeaten in the national series is to swap the blue-and-gold V line of the State jumper for the teal-and-white V of the Port Adelaide guernsey.

In 2015, Phillips was - after making her name in sport as an Olympian and international basketball star - picking up on the dream denied to her and every young female of her generation who found Australian football competitions ended for girls at the under-15s.

Today, Phillips will find herself surrounded by teenagers who have never had to put away the Sherrin ... and their skill base is stronger from this extended talent pathway for young women.

Erin Phillips returns to Alberton as the AFLW's greatest player. Image: Matt Sampson.

For the second time in 28 years - starting with the claiming of an AFL licence in December 1994 - Port Adelaide fans can savour the moment of beginning a new adventure in football.

In 1997, the entry to the AFL was heavily loaded with the theme of carrying Port Adelaide traditions to the national stage. In 2022, the start in the AFLW is about extending the "Port Adelaide way".

"Everyone at this football club," says Phillips, "is invested in doing whatever it takes to get their players to be part of a team that takes the field that will compete hard and play the Port Adelaide way."

History is in the making again. It just needs an official start date - along with a venue and an opponent.

A Friday night Showdown at Adelaide Oval on August 25? Or, to replicate the fixture associated with the first men's Showdown, the AFLW derby could be in round 4, on the eve of the AFL grand final?

"A Friday night with a full house at Adelaide Oval...," says Richardson, virtually thinking out loud. "Imagine how we market the state of South Australia with national free-to-air television coverage of the first AFLW Showdown from Adelaide Oval. It is equal to that moment when we returned football to Adelaide Oval with an AFL Showdown in 2014."