AFL Women's: 'Inspiring' opening round in the words of those who matter.

The first weekend of AFL Women’s wrapped up on Sunday and, while it is certainly too early to call the league a definite success, the opening round can certainly be considered one.

Friday night’s opener between Carlton and Collingwood was a sight to behold, with 24,500 fans turning out to watch the Blues win at their spiritual home of Princes Park.

Adelaide followed that up with a dominant win over GWS that featured the athleticism and ferocity we can expect from the league going forward, as did the Bulldogs’ win over Fremantle.

Unfortunately, the final game of the round — between Brisbane and Melbourne — was hurt by woeful weather, making moments of free-flowing football scarce.

But even though Sunday’s game at Casey Fields was a brutal slug-fest, it too did the job the first round of the AFLW should have done — inspire.

The word ‘inspiration’ is used too often when speaking about sports, but watching women go around in AFL kits in front of thousands (or even tens of thousands) of fans has been fairly labelled just that by those at both ends of the spectrum.

Lauren Arnell (Carlton)

Captaining Carlton in that historic opening match was almost indescribable for Lauren Arnell.

She admitted football had cost her a social life — and perhaps even a few friends — at some points during a 12-year journey towards Friday night but said it was all worth it to compete in this ground-breaking tournament.

"I know that after tonight there's going to be so many young girls and boys who want to achieve what we've just been able to achieve in just round one game of AFLW," Arnell told team media after the win over the Magpies.

"I think when I put the head on the pillow I might have a little bit of a cry about it because I'm blown away. I really am."

Brianna Davey (Carlton)

Arnell's teammate, Brianna Davey, echoed her skipper, saying the AFLW had taken a huge step "not just for women's football but for women's sport".

"My dad texted me earlier today and said 'Bri, this is the game you were born to play'," she said.

"I grew up playing this game and then unfortunately at the time like a lot of girls [there was] no pathway, so I went over to soccer.

"Soccer wasn't my chosen sport at all; football was, and the fact we get to make a semi-professional [league] and hopefully professional one day is absolutely outstanding. I can't believe it. It's awesome."

Erin Phillips (Adelaide)

Davey's code-hopping out of necessity is far from unique. Erin Phillips played football as a youngster but spent the past decade playing basketball, winning WNBA championships, and Olympic and world championship medals.

On Saturday she ran on to Thebarton Oval as an AFL player alongside her three nieces and summed up the current players' role.

"They were just so pumped," she said of her nieces.

"I could just see the excitement in their eyes and the young kids in the crowd and that's what we're about; we're inspiring girls to one day play this great game of ours."

Ebony Marinoff (Adelaide)

In a different boat to the 31-year-old Phillips, young Crows star Ebony Marinoff has an entire AFL career in front of her.

The 19-year-old said she could hardly believe she had gone from state football to pulling on an AFL guernsey in the space of a year and could not wait to see what happens in the next 10 years and beyond.

"It's just great to see little Auskick boys and girls looking up and knowing that there's a foundation that they can play," she told Fox Sports.

"I played all through junior footy with boys, but now to know that there's an AFLW and they can play footy for the rest of their life it's just so emotional and it's just been such a good day."

Emma Zielke (Brisbane)

The Lions played an absolute brute of a match in shocking conditions in a foreign state, but were still backed by thousands of fans.

In fact, 6,500-strong crowd that turned up on Sunday pushed the weekend's crowd figure over 50,000 and neither the result or the weather seemed to stop them from cheering.

"At the end of the game it sounded like it was the Lions home ground with the fans cheering and chanting," Brisbane skipper Emma Zielke said.

"It was an amazing feeling. I can't believe we got the win for them."

Brigitte Crouch

Young footballer Brigitte Crouch was in the crowd on Friday night and the final word has to go to her.

She had played Auskick as a kid but knew an AFL pathway did not exist, so she switched to netball, tennis and other sports where she saw a possible future. But now she has returned to football.

"To get back into it now and see that there's actually somewhere to go with it, it's incredible," she told the ABC.

"To see that these women had these dreams as well and are living it, it's incredible. [It] makes you think you can do it as well."

This post originally appeared on ABC News.