Tellingly, her critics have never included the top AFL callers. In fact, many have publicly sung her praises. With Rex Hunt and Eddie McGuire among her high-profile supporters, theirs is not a group regularly accused of political correctness.

McGuire, speaking to Ten's head of sports production Dave Barham after Underwood was dropped from Ten's AFL commentary team, told his Triple M breakfast audience that he would "hire her in a heartbeat; I think she's a great reporter".

McGuire then reviewed Underwood's two years calling for Ten: "I thought she did a really good job. The unfortunate thing for Kelli was the fact that the audience just isn't quite ready to hear (a) woman's voice, because her identification of the footballers was spot-on, her preparation was unbelievable . . . but in the end, it does come down to what people want to hear."

Rex Hunt, who worked with Underwood at 3AW, called her to offer support after Ten dropped her.

"It's going to take a number of years to change the culture," Hunt tells Green Guide, "because football is a man's game. And it's going to take a very, very long time for a lady to infiltrate the inner sanctum of what is basically a boys' club.

"I think Kelli is a fantastic young person and I want to give her a lot of strength and enthusiasm to just keep going because she is a wonderful talent, not only in calling but in general sportscasting."

For her part, Underwood says being denied the chance to call AFL for Ten this year was a blow but her ambition of being a sportscaster with the ability to call a variety of sports is still well on the way to being realised.

She will work for Ten as a boundary rider this season, as well as being a regular member of ABC 774's AFL team, where she will either boundary ride or commentate.

She called the Australian Open tennis for the ABC and on Sunday afternoon moved into the commentary booth alongside Liz Ellis for a regular gig calling the feature netball game of the week.

There has been some suggestion moving to netball has been a demotion.

"Actually, I've been promoted with netball, because I was doing Monday nights on One and now I'm doing the Sunday games on Ten," Underwood says.

"I'm pumped that I've been given this opportunity to do the netball and I want to do it justice. I'm a sports broadcaster: I get as energised calling a netball game as I do calling an AFL game. I just love the adrenalin that comes with a live broadcast."

Underwood's boss Dave Barham gives two reasons for why he decided not to use her as an AFL caller this year. (To clarify, Underwood was a junior commentator at Ten, she called 12 games for the network in 2009-10.)

As Barham saw it, irregularly calling a handful of matches a year was denying Underwood the chance to improve on a craft that requires practice week in, week out. Second, he had to acknowledge there was a vocal element within the Ten audience that did not like her calling football.

"I think she was fairly harshly treated by the public a little bit and some sections of the media and I think it was made very difficult for her quite unfairly because she was a woman," he says.

"I didn't pick Kel because she was female, I picked the best young person I could find at Channel Ten who I thought was going to be a commentator . . . and if Kel was male, I would be saying exactly the same thing and making the same decision."

Curiously enough, Underwood's work calling football for ABC radio has never attracted the sort of ire it did at Ten. Susie Robinson, executive producer of ABC radio sport sighs and wonders when it will cease to be a big deal that a woman is calling football. "She's been with us for five years now, she's a good caller and that's what we do," Robinson says.

Gerard Whateley, 774's chief football caller, is probably the best recent example of a commentator who has successfully stepped into the role from journalism. Asked whether Underwood's road is harder than his because of her gender, he hesitates.

"I don't know the answer to that but what I will say is that from the ABC's perspective, Kelli was never an experiment," Whateley says.

"She's not broadcasting on the ABC because she's a woman but because we believe she's got the capacity, the quality, the ability and the capability to become a fine broadcaster and there's never been an element of experimentation about it."