Erin Phillips reflects on her sporting ambitions and how, when she was young, AFL football was out of bounds

She has been a star for the Crows, but Erin Phillips once said her blood ran black and white. Is a cross-town switch on the cards after today’s AFLW grand final?

On December 16, 2015 Erin Phillips sat in the Alberton changerooms of the Port Adelaide Football Club and held a press conference for gathered media where she was unveiled as Port Adelaide’s inaugural women’s footballer.

At the time, Port had committed to nominating for a licence to join the women’s national football competition, and Phillips – a professional Olympic basketballer whose connection to Alberton ran deep thanks to her eight-time premiership-winning dad, Greg – would be their marquee signing.

As a girl who grew up wanting to be a footballer, just like her dad, she’d been forced into a different sport by the lack of a women’s league and this announcement was a dream come true.

As she said in 2015: “Unfortunately when I did turn 13, the avenues weren’t there anymore and it is fantastic there is an opportunity now.

“There was always that missing feeling, I always wanted to kick the winning goal at the MCG and win a grand final…”

Then when asked about what it would mean to pull on a Power jumper she said: “This club has been my life, been the life of my family … you could cut me open, I’ve got black and white blood”.

History, of course, shows that Port Adelaide never nominated for an AFLW licence, and the Adelaide Football Club successfully did.

And in the AFLW’s inaugural season in early 2017, Phillips did what only a year earlier had seemed unthinkable: She pulled on the red, yellow and blue jumper and played for the Power’s fiercest cross-town rival.

Erin Phillips kicks a goal during the 2022 AFL round 03 match between the Adelaide Crows and the Port Adelaide Power at Adelaide Oval on April 1, 2022. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images

In the six years since then, she has kicked, marked, tackled and handballed her way into AFLW history as one of the league’s greatest players.

And today, she finds herself in familiar territory, about to play in a grand final at Adelaide Oval – this year’s opponents Melbourne – in the very last game of the season.

This is a game that signals the end of an era for the AFLW – an era where only 14 teams play in the competition.

From Sunday, the AFLW enters a new era, where all 18 men’s teams will have a women’s team too.

Port Adelaide looms large.

Under AFL expansion rules, the Power will be able to sign 14 currently listed AFLW players, up to eight from the Crows.

Inevitably the question arises: Will Erin Phillips return to the club she grew up supporting?

It’s no exaggeration to say the rumours are flying thick and fast through the sporting circles. Some say the Phillips defection to Port was a done deal months ago, others that she is yet to make up her mind and is seriously considering offers to stay at Adelaide.

Some say the 36-year-old will play on.

Others that she’ll coach.

Others that she’ll be a playing-coach.

Footballer Greg Phillips hugging daughter Erin in 1992 after the SANFL Glenelg vs Port Adelaide grand final match. Picture: Neon Martin

Then there’s the thinking that she’ll leave Adelaide all together and head to the US so that her wife, Tracey, and their three children can spend time with their American family after being separated by Covid.

But if there’s one thing that is certain, it’s that when Phillips pulls on the Crows jumper on Saturday and runs out onto Adelaide Oval in her fourth AFLW grand final appearance in only six years, she’ll give nothing but her best.

She’ll thrill fans and foes alike.

Her father, Greg, was a champion of the Port Adelaide Football Club; Phillips is a bona fide champion of the Adelaide Football Club.

It means that if Phillips heads to Alberton, it would surely be the biggest cross-town switch SA football has witnessed in the AFL/W era.

Players who’ve made the “walk across the road” include Ian Downsborough (Port-Crows), Matthew Bode (Port-Crows), Brett Chalmers (Crows-Port), Brad Symes (Port-Crows) and Billy Frampton (Port-Crows).

Erin Phillips celebrates a goal with Caitlin Gould in the background during the 2022 AFL Round 03 match between the Adelaide Crows and the Port Adelaide Power at Adelaide Oval. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images

With all due respect to the others, no cross-town rival signing has had as much an ability to sell tickets and bring in fans as Phillips.

Since 2017, she’s served the Crows admirably as both player, captain, women’s sport advocate and club ambassador.

She’s walked the hard and rocky road back on to the field after a knee reconstruction. She’s climbed the premiership dais. She’s suffered defeat.

And in the tricolours has become the game’s most decorated player: two-time AFLW league best and fairest, two-time AFLW grand final best on ground medallist, two-time premiership co-captain, two-time Crows club champion, two-time Crows leading goal-kicker, two-time AFL Players Association MVP, three-time All-Australian, 2017’s goal of the year winner.

Inside the walls at Adelaide’s West Lakes’ headquarters she has demanded excellence. She has challenged her teammates, pushed them to their limits, lived by elite standards and encouraged others to do the same.

And as footy fans, we’ve simply had the pleasure of sitting back and enjoying the show.

So, if there’s anything that Erin Phillips – a player who has brought so much joy to this state – has earned once the final siren sounds, it’s the right to do whatever she likes.