My response was that this was highly unlikely. At 28, the qualified midwife and the eldest child of separated parents, already a long-established champion in her chosen field and currently toiling over the finishing touches of the Demons' bid document for a national women's team, was hardly about to crumple in the face of wider fame.

The conversation took place last week shortly after Pearce sat between Melbourne coach Paul Roos and captain Nathan Jones on a panel at the club's annual breakfast honouring the work of Breast Cancer Network Australia, the forthcoming pink game against the Western Bulldogs and the 10-year anniversary of the MCG's first Field of Women.

Inadvertently, Pearce stole the show referencing her own mother's battle with breast cancer several years ago — not known to most of her colleagues at Melbourne — and the emotional struggle of the young aspiring athlete at being forced to potentially face the dual burden of losing her mother and being left to help raise her younger siblings.

Pearce also singled out her admiration for several guests at the breakfast. Not only did she look up to AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick as a Rhodes Scholar and leader of the game, she said, but for her family, he would always be the great ruckman who held up two premiership cups for Carlton.

It was a performance punctuated by tears — happily Pearce's mother, Dee Wornes, is a breast cancer survivor — and one that also signified again just why the AFL has fallen hard for the women's game. And why so many clubs are suddenly jostling and scrambling to present compelling cases to head office in a bid for one of the eight national licences before the April 29 deadline.

Not only are the two AFL broadcasters — the Seven Network and Fox Footy — vying to televise next year's inaugural season from February in what should prove a happy alternative to the NAB Challenge, but, like others, they are also engaged in a battle for Pearce.

Now represented by the Paul Connors stable — the seasoned player agent likened her resolve to that of Chris Judd, Luke Hodge and Luke Ball when he signed her earlier this year — her direct manager Alex Saundry was scheduled to meet Seven bosses in the coming days to discuss that network's "plans" for Pearce. Already moonlighting as a boundary rider on K Rock, Pearce has also had to knock back an appearance on Fox Footy due to playing commitments.

Her still semi-regular Channel Seven debut came on Game Day two Sundays ago. Fresh from a 48-possession game for the Darebin Falcons — Pearce has played in eight premierships and has won six Helen Lambert VWFL best and fairests — she took her place alongside a panel that included Rory Sloane and analysed, interrogated and reviewed the West Australian derby as well as, or better than, any media commentator that day.

In a nod to her sponsor New Balance — also Melbourne's sponsor and currently caught up in a battle with the AFL over the forthcoming women's apparel negotiations — Pearce raised her football boots and sang their praises.

Her boss Peter Jackson, thrilled at the New Balance plug but unaware that she would be appearing, demanded later why she hadn't made him aware of her Game Day debut. "You warned me not to get a big head," responded Pearce.

Melbourne's love affair with the women's game began some years ago and that club will surely become a foundation club — with Pearce as captain — alongside the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood, with Carlton the current, but not overwhelming, favourite to become the fourth Victorian women's team. The Demons' love affair with Pearce was cemented when she delivered, with less than an hour's notice, her memorable acceptance speech at last year's best and fairest dinner.

The trio of Pearce, club executive Jennifer Watt and colleague and women's pioneer Debbie Lee have overseen the Melbourne bid presentation.

Pearce is undergoing a graduate traineeship at the club covering commercial, community and football, and the AFL, too, sees her not only as an on-field linchpin of the new competition but also a media star across the men's and women's games.

But those who have worked with Pearce believe her future lies, should she so choose, at head office at a time the game is crying out for competent women executives. On Tuesday, the AFL Commission was meeting to lay further foundations for the new competition, well aware that young women such as Daisy Pearce will prove the cultural focal point for the game's female revolution.

Despite her hard work and not entirely easy life, Pearce makes her heavy lifting for the AFL look effortless. I first interviewed her during 2015 grand final week at the annual and traditional Carbine Club function. Pearce was one of a panel that included Meg Hutchins and Elise O'Dea. We were very much a token and last-minute arrangement forced by the AFL and some more progressive members of Victoria's men's-only establishment in a bid to save the luncheon's place in the Melbourne September calendar.

Had we not appeared, the AFL would not have sanctioned the event and CEO Gillon McLachlan, a Champion of Change, would have been forced to boycott it. And yet, shortly before taking to the stage, I was asked to shorten our segment by half due to timing constraints.

Watching Daisy Pearce step up to the plate on the Demons' best and fairest podium, on Channel Seven, at the Melbourne Football Club and on centre stage in the MCC Members Dining Room in this, her coming-out season, it seems unlikely she will ever again be cut short.