Anyone watching our U16 girls at their tournament this weekend may notice something a little different about their kit.

The black shorts!

Across the girls’ side of Tralee Magic, we are actively moving towards black playing shorts. It is a relatively small change to a basketball uniform, but it has been made very deliberately with the girls wearing it in mind.

There is a lot of discussion in Irish sport about keeping teenage girls playing.

That conversation rightly includes coaching, confidence, opportunity, facilities and creating sporting environments where girls feel they belong. But sometimes it also means paying attention to the smaller, practical things that can make taking part uncomfortable or unnecessarily stressful.

Periods are one of them.

We don't see much point in avoiding the word.

That thinking is inspired by #SayPeriod, a campaign supported by more than 50 elite female athletes which challenged people in sport to stop hiding menstruation behind euphemisms and simply call it what it is: a period. The idea is remarkably simple — the more normally we can talk about periods, the easier it becomes for athletes to raise a problem, ask a question or tell a coach what they need.

For a girl playing basketball while having her period, the fear of leaking through light-coloured shorts is very real.

It might never happen. But worrying that it might is enough. Armagh's Blaithin Mackin has spoken publicly about players checking themselves and asking teammates to make sure they hadn't leaked while playing. Just as importantly, she spoke about players feeling that their concerns had been listened to.

Instead of thinking about the next possession, getting back on defence or what the coach has just asked her to do, a player can find herself wondering whether there is a mark on her shorts. She might be checking when she sits down, pulling at her jersey or quietly asking a teammate to look.

That's a distraction she shouldn't have to carry onto a basketball court.

And Tralee Magic certainly isn't the first Irish sports organisation to recognise it.

Here in Kerry, Kerry Ladies moved away from their traditional light-coloured shorts to black in 2023. Armagh also moved to black, while a number of other inter-county teams made similar moves towards darker playing shorts. The changes were part of a growing, and refreshingly straight forward, conversation among female athletes about the anxiety of wearing white or very light kit during their periods.

The Ireland Women's rugby team made a similar change, replacing white shorts with navy after players raised concerns around periods and the anxiety of wearing white while menstruating.

For us, that is really the point.

It also sits within a much bigger conversation about keeping girls involved in sport.

Sport Ireland's Her Moves programme has been developed specifically around teenage girls and the factors that can cause them to disengage from physical activity. Through its work with teenage girls, Sport Ireland has identified menstruation as one of the challenges associated with female puberty that can become a barrier to participation.

Its Period Positive initiative goes a step further, encouraging clubs, coaches, parents and schools to make periods something that can be talked about and managed normally within sport rather than something girls are expected to deal with silently.

That is very relevant at grassroots, club level.

We want our girls to train hard. We want competitive teams. We want them learning the game, challenging themselves, winning games, losing games, making friends and becoming better basketball players.

But we also want them to keep playing.

Part of doing that is recognising that the experience of a teenage girl in sport isn't always exactly the same as that of a teenage boy — and being prepared to make sensible changes because of it.

Black shorts are one of those changes.

There is another much smaller one that most people will probably never notice.

Because sometimes a period arrives unexpectedly.

Sometimes somebody forgets something.

And sometimes a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old girl really doesn't want to have to announce to a room full of adults that she needs a pad or tampon.

If she needs one, it's there.

No fuss. No embarrassment. No explanation required.

None of these things, individually, is going to solve the challenge of keeping teenage girls involved in sport.

Black shorts won't do it.

Period products in a first-aid bag won't do it.

Even saying the word period instead of whispering around it won't do it on its own.

But culture is built through lots of small decisions.

It is built when girls know the adults running their team have actually thought about their experience.

It is built when a player can say, "I've got my period," with no more embarrassment than saying she has a sore ankle.

It is built when girls raise something that makes them uncomfortable and the answer isn't, that's just how we've always done it.

And sometimes it is built by changing a pair of shorts.

For the girls' side of Tralee Magic, moving to black is one of those small decisions.

That's exactly where we want their attention to be. 💙