There aren't many triangles in sport. Circles, squares, rectangles, sure, but not a lot of triangles. But this equilateral idea captured, for me at least, the whole point in the recent revolution, if that's not too big a word, in women's sport.

As Canberra prepares for one of it's biggest weekends of women's sport ever, with the AFLW GWS Giants Western Bulldogs match at Manuka Oval and the Super Netball clash between Giants Netball and the Adelaide Thunderbirds, the forum was timely indeed.

Let's face it, the success of the AFLW has turned sport on its head. It was already tumbling, kicked along in recent times by the Australian women's rugby 7s gold medal winning team, resurgences in a national netball competition, the women's Big Bash cricket, the success of our national soccer and basketball teams on the world state, and all those countless individual athletes like rower Kim Brennan, world surfing champion Tyler Wright and BMX rider Caroline Buchanan.

Thursday's forum raised all kinds of interesting issues, but the one people seemed to get fixated on was pay parity. Why shouldn't women athletes get paid as much as men, asked one young woman. Why indeed, but is that really what we should be putting our efforts into when there is so much more to fight for?

Australian rugby player Louise Burrows admitted it costs her to play for her country, when she takes into account lost wages, training costs, and the like. Indeed on Thursday she had to race home after the forum and pay the babysitter as her husband was at his own training session that night. Can't imagine Stephen Moore having to do the same.

But this example is not about money, it's about athletes, regardless of their gender, getting the same opportunities, the same access to coaches and training facilities, the same level of support from management.

Long time soccer advocate Heather Reid made many great points from the audience. Reid has just been appointed as the Football Federation Australia women's committee, she's all for equal opportunity.

Journalist Angela Pippos, who has just released a book - Breaking the Mould: Taking a hammer to sexism in sport - and whose glorious documentary, League of Their Own, the forum got to watch, believes we're on our way there.

She spoke about tennis legend Billie Jean King and how sometimes women need to cause a fuss to make change. Reid mentioned later that the United States women's ice hockey team is threatening to boycott the upcoming world championships after negotiations for an increase in wages and support from the national body stalled. US captain Meghan Duggan has called for US Hockey to "stop treating us like an afterthought".

I'm sure that's a thought that's gone through the mind of any woman involved in an elite national program where there is a men's equivalent.

Which is why the AFLW is interesting. Has there been a men's pre-season competition this year? The women's games are garnering more interest, better crowds, better ratings, more coverage. I bet the AFL can't wait for the season proper to kick off to regain equilibrium.

I'm probably being somewhat cynical, indeed the AFL seems to be one of the more progressive sporting bodies in the country. But when Collingwood president Eddie McGuire makes an appearance in Pippos' documentary rattling on about how wonderful it all is and how the black and white stripes have always represented diversity, one can't help but wonder what he's saying back in the so called locker room.

Part of me is scared that the whole thing might be considered as some sort of novelty event. Let's roll the circus out and see what happens. Fill it with attractive women, music, plenty of hype and see if the crowd buys it. They did, and we have, but what happens in season four, or season 10. Will there still be the same support? From both fans and the boardroom?

Which, in a somewhat circular way, brings me back to the triangle.

Sadler said we can't focus our attention too much on the pointy end of the triangle at this point. Up there sits pay parity, gender equity, unbiased media coverage, sponsorship. All those things, she said, that you have to think about when you're in the boardroom.

But when she's feeling all soft and fuzzy, she said, she starts to think about all the other benefits from having women's sport in the spotlight. About the young girls who start believing that they can, who stop thinking about how their bodies look and more about what they can do, the health benefits, both mental and physical, about how now women are sporting role models for both our sons and daughters, about how now girls will never have to feel like Debbie Lee who used to hide behind a tree if someone came while she was down at the park kicking the footy around because she was embarrassed. Lee is now the Women's Football Operations manager of the Melbourne Football Club, a woman who probably wishes all this happened 30 years ago.

Sadler is sure the triangle will take care of itself. If we build a strong base, the top end will sort itself out. Get women involved anyway we can, playing, in administration, in coaching, in media, and by the time the young girls who are debuting in this season's inaugural competition are Debbie Lee's age the pointy end of the triangle will be in a pretty good place.