They say that football is the sleeping giant of sport. I'd say that women's football is the sleeping giant of football. And I'd bet that anyone who saw Brisbane take on Canberra in the Westfield W-League sudden-death semi final would agree.

It ended one goal apiece followed by 30 minutes of extra time where both teams scored again sent the knife-edge final to heart-stopping penalties. Brisbane went first but Canberra goalkeeper Lydia Williams saved the shot and the penalty lead see-sawed. In an it-couldn't-have-been-scripted-better finish, Casey Dumont saved Canberra's fourth penalty shot with an heroic dive, then stepped up, keeper v keeper, to take Brisbane's fifth. She powered the penalty into the right-hand corner and the crowd exploded off their seats*.

It was a season one grand final rematch and had all the elements of a grand final. Watching it, I couldn't quite believe how far in just three too-short seasons women's football and the Westfield W-League have come. National coach Tom Sermanni said that it was a game where no one deserved to lose, and that sentiment easily translates to the eventual selection of the Westfield Matildas squad that will travel to Germany for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup in June.

Just three years ago, you could rattle off who'd be in not only the squad, but in the starting XI. These days the depth of talent is so great, you could name over 20 possible starters and do your head in trying to predict who'll make the eventual cut.

The Westfield W-League, which was devised specifically to nurture Australian footballers on home soil, has yielded talent-development results that I'd argue are beyond our wildest dreams. I've said—Sermanni's said it too so it must be true—that this is without a doubt a step up from previous seasons and is, in fact, the most technically precise, fast-paced, and entertaining season yet.

The comp has uncovered talented players who either would have gone unnoticed (that old chestnut that if a player scores a cracking goal, but the national coach doesn't see it it probably didn't happen applies) or who wouldn't have had the regular, quality training or playing opportunities they now do.

The result has seen the steady improvement of the existing Matildas players (Kyah Simon, who's leading the golden boot race is in cracking form) and the emergence of some surprise bolters (without the W-League platform, season two golden boot Michelle Heyman or young gun Teigan Allen might not have been discovered).

There will be some serious bandwagon-jumping come the World Cup in June as the Matildas' mettle on display combined with a relative dearth of men's football (soccer) to watch in the A-League off-season lull brings them to attention. I mean, there'll be plenty of 'these girls can actually play' out-loud observations and armchair expertise. There'll be guys waxing lyrical about how the Matildas have proved their strength, having won the Asian Cup in 2010—something that they, to both my frustration and bemusement, didn't seem to remember when the Socceroos were making their way through the comp in recent weeks.

There'll also be some chin-stroking analysis of how the Matildas will fare against group opponents Brazil, Norway, and Equatorial Guinea—teams none of us have really ever seen play but which I'm sure won't hinder us espousing dubiously expert theories. But I'm kind of ok with that if it brings the game (and specifically the women's game) into people's lounge rooms and onto their radars.

FIFA research tells us that some 27 million women play football worldwide-as in more than Australia's entire population-and this sleeping football giant is starting to awaken. We're seeing it with the ever-increasing support for the W-League and its players and the indignation we witnessed at the fact that the ABC didn't show the two semi finals live and in full on the weekend.

I recently came on board as the content editor for the FFA's Girls FC (http://www.facebook.com/girlsfc). It's a Facebook fan page designed to bring together football fans and players and to enable fans to pick up skills and tips, to ask questions of these women's footballing experts, to find a club to play—to, in short, connect with football and each other. As part of this role and via the feedback I receive from this FourFourTwo blog, I witnessed first hand the frustration many felt at the fact that the ABC showed, under its contractual obligations, women's golf in the timeslot they've more recently reserved for women's football.

And I have to admit that I felt heartened.

Now, you can save your vitriolic comments about how the ABC let down women's football. No really, save them, because it's done and dusted. What we (and the ABC) should be taking away from this is that they underestimated the increased and increasing support for women's football. Even three years ago, no one would have noticed much less vocalised their discontent had the ABC rescheduled (or not scheduled at all) the broadcast of a game of women's football. That it was noticed and that fans made it clear that this wasn't acceptable (albeit not always in entirely constructive ways) is worthy of high fives.

I've long bemoaned the lack of broadcast coverage for the W-League. I've written blog after blog asking whether if a game is played but no one sees it, is it really played at all? I've noted that it's nigh on impossible for fans to support their teams throughout a short season when, short of being Clive Palmer with his private jet, they're unable to see or travel to every other game. I declared the now-defunct Central Coast Mariners the canary in the footballing coalmine and am worried the Adelaide United W-League team are/will be the coalmine's second victim.

But I'm still hopeful for women's football.

My gut feeling is that if we turn out in force for the W-League grand final between Sydney and Brisbane this weekend and for the Matildas in the Women's World Cup in June and July, it will be noticed. I won't get into discussions about the financial viability of the women's league, but I will say that I think that the owners of the Central Coast Mariners and Adelaide United have underestimated the importance of having W-League teams and that the ABC undervalued fans keenness to support their squads. How long the memories and how great the ire of the fans they've turned off as a result remains to be seen.

I will also say that we fans are at least in part at fault. We're quick to complain, but slow to support. If we want the ABC to broadcast more games, to understand why it's not kosher to move and shorten coverage at the pointy end of the season, and if we want the W-League season to be longer, we need to back them. That means online via such fan pages as Girls FC. That means through tuning in to the Women's World Cup. That means being vocal (in a constructive, polite, well-reasoned, well-argued, reasonable sort of way) about what we'd like to see and why.

And that means in person at fixtures, including this weekend's grand final in Sydney. I find it no small irony that I heard from more fans about how it wasn't cool to not broadcast the games live than I've seen at many games; we won't see more money flowing into women's football or more matches being broadcast if we don't demonstrate our commitment with cash at the gate (seriously, it's a bargain $10 entry for adults this weekend) and bums on seats. The last game for the 2010/11 season—a grand final rematch played out between the bulk of the players who will most likely make up the Matildas squad heading to the World Cup in four months' time—will be played this Saturday. Now's the time to do some serious women's football supporting (and get a head start on your Women's World Cup bandwagon-jumping armchair commentaries and expertise).

* Hilariously and brilliantly, Dumont told me after the match that she was supposed to go first but got nervous and asked to go last. She'd forgotten that she was taking a penalty by the time it got to her and was still celebrating saving Ellyse Perry's shot when everyone was telling her it was her turn to step up.