QUICKER than you can blink, Season 7 of AFLW is disappearing before our eyes. Port Adelaide will play its 10th and last game of the club's inaugural home-and-away campaign on Sunday, at home at Alberton against Essendon.

And then there will be a long list of questions to resolve, both at Port Adelaide and at headquarters.

Never again will this 30-player group of "Inaugurals" be together again after Sunday's match, such is the demand of a competition that enforces list changes to turnover the draft. A group that has had little time to "connect" will be pulled apart by the league rules on list management. Such is top-level football ...

Port Adelaide will finish the season having played just 10 of its 17 rivals. Herstory must wait for matches against competition pacesetter Brisbane, last season's runner-up Melbourne, this season's rapid riser at Richmond, the grudge session against Collingwood, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney and Fremantle.

Is it safe to assume that Port Adelaide's fixture next season will involve all these seven teams?

AFLW boss Nicole Livingstone and her team face quite a critical debate on the make-up of the 2023 home-and-away fixture.

Advancing the season from late January-early April to late August-late November should be considered a success, even if only for answering Port Adelaide captain Erin Phillips' concern for AFLW players taking the field in the extreme heat of summer.

But 10 games in a qualifying season that involves 18 teams? Is this enough?

More home-and-away matches would deliver greater credibility in the race to the top-eight finals. But this would also incur more costs for a league that is trying to pay its way.

Livingstone needs to balance the price in putting on matches with the cost to the integrity of the top-eight series should it still be too difficult to advance to a 17-round home-and-away series.

In some ways, it could be viewed as a pity the conference system that split the competition into two groups in 2019-2020 was changed after there had been two five-club divisions in 2019 and two seven-team series in 2020. Those who continue to complain that "conferences" are a spin-off of American professional sport should study the Australian game from the late 1890s and early 1900s when splitting the league into groups preceded any competition in the USA.

Conferences may allow for the AFLW to have equity and fairness with the home-and-away competition in the lead-up to the finals.

The challenge is determining how the conferences are constructed - two groups of nine or three groups of six?

Livingstone has much to work through while the AFLW deals with the growing pains that have come with expansion to 18 teams in just seven seasons.

What thoughts and themes are left from Season 7 that played out so quickly?

As Brisbane premiership coach Craig Starcevich noted, there will be the annual chestnut of the quality of AFLW when compared to AFL. Some shockjocks know when the ratings game needs to turn the AFLW into a punching bag. Yet, the two games and two leagues are not supposed to be put up against each other. Old men behind radio microphones and dusty laptops seem to forget the AFLW was constructed for young women to follow their dreams in Australian football - and not to compete with the AFL game.

There is not an AFL v AFLW agenda in a sport that is seeking to match many others for offering elite opportunities to both men and women.

Each league, each game has its purpose. There is no competition between leagues to deliver the same product. Rather, diversity is the ultimate end game.

Port Adelaide lived up to its promise to empower women in leadership roles in its AFLW program. Every senior role is in the hands of women, including the senior coach - Lauren Arnell, the first AFLW player to become an AFLW senior coach.

There was no surprise in Erin Phillips putting aside the No. 22 jumper - made famous by her father Greg - to become Port Adelaide's first AFLW captain. But there has been much noted of how Phillips can play so many roles to drive her team rather than her reputation as an ALFW superstar. Team first ...

Port Adelaide entered the AFLW with a clear plan to work with youth. The concept of looking to the long game with young talent growing together at Alberton will have greater promise and relevance next season and the one after and the one after that. A squad built for sustained success has found a strong platform with the talents and work ethic of Hannah Ewings, Maria Moloney, Indy Tahau, Alex Ballard, Abbey Dowrick, Ebony O'Dea, Kate Surman and Jacqui Yorston.

The Port Adelaide faithful are learning of new heroes to admire.

The leadership of Phillips, Ange Foley and Gemma Houghton has established a strong culture that will draw others to Alberton to follow a dream, just as elite basketball star Olivia Levicki did to become a sound player in ruck in less than a dozen matches of Australian football at any level.

It has been a quick show, but a good show. 

The stage at Alberton Oval is changing - and has new purpose with the AFLW team to play its non-Showdown home games at the club's 142-year-old spiritual home. The return to Alberton for many Port Adelaide fans now well placed at Adelaide Oval for AFL matches has revived memories of just how powerful the fan base can be on match day. Certainly North Melbourne coach Darren Crocker never will doubt such.

For Port Adelaide it ends on Sunday afternoon with the last of the matches against the three other new teams in the AFLW. At best, Port Adelaide will have two wins and a draw from 10 matches and a long list of regrets from matches that were lost by not competing the "Port Adelaide way" for long enough or for not finishing seemingly endless runs of inside-50s with scoreboard pressure on the opposition.

Arnell's response on whether this season-closing game against Essendon was to be built up as a "grand final" is priceless.

"We don't need to treat (the season-closer with Essendon) differently to any other game," Arnell said.

"Every game is as important as every other for us. We turn up to win."

There will be more games in 2023. How many? Livingstone's answer will be fascinating. 

There will be more wins for Port Adelaide in 2023. How many? Herstory is in the making ...