ERIN Phillips was weeks away from her 12th birthday when the first AFL Showdown was played at Football Park on April 20, 1997.

It was a significant moment in South Australian football history ... and that 12th birthday party once marked the end of a young girl's passage in Australian football.

Phillips on Friday night will lead the Port Adelaide Football Club in AFLW Showdown I. All of this was impossible to imagine 25 years ago ... Phillips having a professional football career, the AFL with a women's league and a women's football derby on Adelaide Oval with a national television audience.

In 1997, all of this - even top-flight football on Adelaide Oval - was well beyond a dream, let alone the reality that will unfold on Friday evening.

The original Showdown has had 52 renditions with Port Adelaide having won 27, including the first at West Lakes.

Showdown I had a dramatic seven-year build up starting on the steps of the Supreme Court at Victoria Square where Port Adelaide's national ambitions were put on hold rather than archived with legal papers. The derby has symbolised all South Australian football was along the Port Adelaide and The Rest divide before 1990 and ever since.

AFLW Showdown I has a very different preface. Port Adelaide this time plays a well-established team with three national crowns rather than none. Phillips and her vice-captain Ange Foley and fellow AFLW pioneer Justine Mules encounter a side that has its culture built on their legacy from that first AFLW season in 2017. It is quite an emotional bridge they have crossed from West Lakes to Alberton, even if Phillips has simply come home.

In 1997, Showdown I was played on the foundation of a South Australian football story that was more than a century in the making.

What translates to Showdown I when top-flight women's football has been played for less than seven years?

There is the rivalry - a deep line in the sand that has become clearly defined in recent seasons by Port Adelaide players making it known exactly how they feel about the neighbour on the western side of Port Road.

The Port Adelaide AFLW players who have eagerly wanted to soak in the Port Adelaide Football Club's heritage and traditions now get to live the deep-seated rivalry that manifests as a Showdown.

Showdown I created the hottest ticket in town in 1997 when 47,256 went through the turnstiles at Football Park and five times as many fans claimed they were at West Lakes to see Port Adelaide claim the first bragging rights in the derby rivalry.

Adelaide Oval. Friday night. Spring weather ... a sell-out would be an extraordinary endorsement of the AFLW game and send another message to AFL House as to how intense (and marketable) the Showdown has become in just a quarter of the century. There is no reason for the serious concerns from mass gatherings during the COVID pandemic to linger, particularly when there is hardly a protocol from the "masked" saga - not even masks on public transport - complicating the passage to a seat at Adelaide Oval. The State's chief health officer could even feel comfortable catching the Sherrin now.

The pre-game expectation will be for 20,000 to be at Adelaide Oval to see "herstory in the making".

Showdown I gave a new generation of Port Adelaide players the understanding of what was required to succeed in the AFL - Rising Star winner Michael Wilson, Brendon Lade, Roger James, Matthew Primus, Josh Francou ...

AFLW Showdown I will do the same for Hannah Ewings, Abbey Dowrick, Indy Tahau, Maria Moloney, Yasmin Duursma ...

The derby rivals do come to this Showdown with very different build ups to the Showdown in 1997. This time, Port Adelaide faces a rival that is defending a premiership and has just achieved the biggest winning margin (96 points) in seven seasons of AFLW.

So does the AFLW Showdown carry the theme that form, premiership standings and results have no meaning nor relevance in deciding the derby?

We shall see on Friday evening.

It will be the first time Lauren Arnell's "Inaugurals" have faced a team known as a standard bearer in the AFLW. They are about to learn just where they do stand in this 18-team league's hierarchy.

The meaningful reflection before, during and after this Showdown is to think back to April 20, 1997 and think how Australian football was limiting itself by telling Erin Phillips to pack away her football boots at 12 - and to take her sporting dreams to basketball (or netball or another sport that accepted girls could continue on their courts and field as women).

Today, Australian football's greatest growth - and most-challenging growing pains - are in catching up after so many generations of young girls were told they could cheer at a game but not be cheered themselves for showing their talents with the Sherrin.

This Showdown will be a game to appreciate for how women's football is played - rather than how it is "not the same as the men's game". It simply is not the same. And no-one makes that comparison with basketball or tennis or golf. Those sports appreciate the diversity of its games and so should Australian football fans.

This week, South Australian football gets a new version of its most-intense rivalry. The game is better for it.