Basketball star Erin Phillips would have regretted not trying AFLW

SHE knew it could put her WNBA career at risk but Erin Phillips had to have a crack at top-level footy. Now the Crows — and the competition — are reaping the rewards.

Erin Phillips in action. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

WESTERN Bulldogs coach Paul Groves was asked at a women’s football breakfast earlier this month what had made him go ‘Wow’ during the inaugural AFLW season.

He didn’t hesitate. “I’ve seen Erin Phillips,” Groves said.

The Adelaide co-captain has lit up AFL Women’s, with her midfield muscle and forward nous launching the Crows to the cusp of a Grand Final berth.

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Her hanger over Melbourne’s Mel Hickey last week was just a sample of what the 31-year-old can do.

The Australian Opal and guard with WNBA club Dallas Wings had no expectations about this season and a simple philosophy is working well.

“My dad (Greg) always says if you love something, you have fun, you’ll do it well,” Phillips said.

“I’m just loving every second of it. You can see it on my face when I’m out there.”

Erin Phillips has kicked five goals this season.

Basketball is Phillips’ main game and since making her international debut in 2005 she has won Commonwealth Games Gold, an Olympic silver medal and a World Championship as well as two WNBA titles.

But the pull of AFL was so strong, largely thanks to dad Greg who is a legendary Port Adelaide figure and 84-gamer for Collingwood, the risk she could void her current WNBA contract with Dallas if she was injured was quickly brushed aside.

“I honestly thought if I didn’t play in this season the regret would have been bigger,” she said.

“For me, that was the deciding factor. If I didn’t give this a go I’m always going to regret it.

“My coach was great and my general manager was really good, obviously there were some concerns … basically they were like, ‘We know how much this game means to you’ they know my dad’s history with it, they were like, ‘Just stay healthy’.”

Groves witnessed first-hand the damaging Phillips effect. She had 16 touches as the Crows defeated the Bulldogs by 25 points.

“Just in the warm up, she’s not overly tall (173cm) ... the way she physically presented when I walked past her, I was like, ‘Oh, OK’, then the way she plays and that’s ultimately why Adelaide are going so well, on the back of her,” Groves said.

Phillips’ skill as a point guard on court has transferred to the oval ball with her sure hands and vision often putting her a class above her opposition.

“In basketball you’re playing in such a confined space with nine other people on the floor at the same time, you’ve got to make really quick decisions, you’ve got to read what other people are about to do before they actually do it, it’s really similar (to football) especially in stoppages,” she said.

But teammate, 19-year-old midfield gun Ebony Marinoff, reckons Phillips is just a natural footballer and her pedigree has had much to do with her performance this season.

“As soon as I saw her when she came out to training I knew she was going to be a deadset gun,” Marinoff said.

“Just the way she kicked her first drop punt, the way she moved … Just her skills, to pick that up after 20 years, you know she’s got it in the blood.”

Erin Phillips with her dad, Port Magpies legend and former Collingwood player Greg Phillips. Picture: Sarah Reed

It’s not just on field where she’s made a mark. Phillips has become a mentor to Marinoff off the field too.

“I’ve got two young children to look after and Ebony’s my third child,” Phillips said, laughing.

“She’s just a special person,” Marinoff responds.

“She’s played at the Olympics, everything over there doesn’t always go well, even their campaign in Rio wasn’t fantastic and that was pretty tough.

“She’s got a wealth of knowledge of how to deal with things, I think that’s probably the main impact she’s had on me, obviously me being 19. I don’t have much experience how to deal with things because I’ve had it pretty easy my whole life.”

Phillips’ wife Tracy Gahan, a former basketball teammate, gave birth to their twins, a boy and girl, Blake and Brooklyn, in November.

“They’re the best part of my life,” Phillips said.

“There’s nothing I have ever done that’s any better than have kids with my wife.

“It’s the best thing but the hardest thing … I’ve just got a really good balance. Staying with my parents (Greg and Julie), they have just been amazing. Without them we would have packed up and gone, this is too hard to come from America and try to do this alone.

“It’s been such a really good distraction as well. Win, lose or draw I get to come home and just hang out with them.”

Phillips and her family will head back to America at the end of April to begin her WNBA pre-season with Dallas.

She’ll be the fittest she’s ever been after the “massive shock to the system” of playing on AFL grounds.

“You really just get an appreciation of how hard this game is, it’s by far the hardest game to play in the world,” she said.

Her success has garnered plenty of interest from her WNBA teammates, opening up endless possibilities for future AFLW rookies.

The 196cm, 24-year-old centre Theresa Plaisance is especially keen.

“Looking at how successful the season’s been so far … and the fact that footy’s just bloody fun to play, we’ll find a lot more codehoppers or girls who were playing football before and just never had that pathway,” she said.

“A couple of my WNBA teammates are massive fans. One of them (Plaisance) reckons she’d be a great ruckman. She’s not a fantastic runner, but she’s like, ‘I can work on it’.

“The amount of girls that are following it overseas just on my social media (is huge). They’re massive fans of it and they’re loving it.”

Phillips is constantly asked, what’s next?

With the WNBA season to come followed by AFLW02, the 2018 Commonwealth Games and Tokyo Olympics in 2020, there’s a lot of options

“It’s kind of nice just to have such a short goal at the moment. When you look too far ahead you can miss what you’re doing now, and that’s something I didn’t want to do,” Phillips said.

“I just want to give footy my best shot and then go back to Dallas and that’s all I really want to know right now.”

Originally published as Basketball star Erin Phillips would have regretted not trying AFLW