On Saturday, the pitches of the Leschenault Recreation Grounds in Australind belonged entirely to girls. Girls warming up. Girls calling for the ball. Girls celebrating goals, consoling teammates, swapping high-fives with opponents, and playing football from morning until the last whistle of the day.

The 2026 Australind Girls' Soccer Carnival, hosted by the volunteers of the Australind Junior Soccer Club, was a huge success. We had the joy of being right in the middle of it, marquee up, music pumping, new ranges on the racks, and we are still buzzing.

But before we get to our day, we want to talk about something bigger. Because a carnival like Saturday's is not just a great day out. For a lot of girls, it is the exact thing that keeps them in sport.

What an All-Girls Carnival Really Means

Here is the backdrop to every girls' sport event in this country. The peak age at which Australian girls drop out of sport is just 15.^[2] AusPlay data indicates that roughly one third of females have stopped participating in club sport by that age.^[3] And in national research by Visa and Year13, 60 per cent of Australian girls said they did not have a female sports star they looked up to, while nearly half of those who quit said they needed more time to study and almost a third pointed to body image.^[2]

Read those reasons again. Time. Body image. No one to look up to. None of them is about the game itself. Girls are not falling out of love with sport. They are being quietly squeezed out of it, by pressure, by self-consciousness, and by environments that were never really built with them in mind.

Now think about what an all-girls carnival does to every one of those forces.

She is never the only one

At a mixed event, a girl can find herself one of a handful of girls on a pitch full of boys, hyper-aware of every touch. On Saturday, every player on every pitch was a girl. There is no faster way to dissolve self-consciousness than to look around and see hundreds of girls exactly like you, sweating, shouting, missing shots and taking them anyway.

Her role models are standing right next to her

When 60 per cent of girls say they have no female sports star to look up to,^[2] a carnival quietly fixes it at ground level. An 8-year-old in her first season watches a 16-year-old ping a cross-field pass and thinks, that will be me. Role models do not have to be on television. Sometimes they are two pitches over.

Fun is the whole point

The Australind carnival is deliberately run as fun, friendly competition, a club-level day rather than an academy showcase.^[1] That matters more than it sounds. Researchers who have tracked women's and girls' participation for years, including Professor Rochelle Eime and colleagues, are clear that sport needs deliberate strategies to retain girls through adolescence, because once they leave, most never come back.^[4] Days that put joy first, in front of ladders and trophies, are precisely that strategy in action.

Our Day at the Marquee

And what a day it was for us. The Hero Athletica marquee was busy from the moment the first games kicked off, and we loved every minute: meeting players and parents, talking all things girls' sport, and watching girls find shirts that were made for them, not handed down to them.

Thank You, Australind. Now, About Next Year...

To the Australind Junior Soccer Club committee and volunteers: thank you. Nine years of building a day where girls come first takes an enormous amount of unglamorous work, and it shows in every detail. To the coaches, parents and supporters who filled the sidelines: you are the reason those girls keep lacing up.

And to every girl who played on Saturday: you were the best part of the whole day.

Now for the exciting bit. Next year, the Australind Girls' Soccer Carnival turns ten. A decade of girls-only football in the South West. The 10th anniversary carnival is going to be huge, and Hero Athletica will absolutely be there. If Saturday is anything to go by, you will not want to miss it.

See you in 2027, Australind. Same pitches. Bigger party.