Former Adelaide Crow and Port star Erin Phillips has ‘no aspirations’ to become an AFLW coach

She’s one of the most decorated players in the history of AFLW, but this former Crow and Power star has no aspirations to return as a coach.

Pioneering footballer Erin Phillips says she has no aspirations to become an AFLW coach.

Phillips, 39, retired in 2023 after a glittering AFLW career for both the Crows and Port Adelaide which included three premierships and two league best and fairest awards.

She has returned to her footballing roots to coach daughter Brooklyn in under-8s but has told The Advertiser she has no desire to return and coach at the top level.

“I’m never going to say never, because I said I would never play for the Crows and look what happened,” Phillips said.

“I’m careful with words but for me to be an AFLW head coach is massive – it’s an enormous responsibility. Where my life is at the moment I quite enjoy the balance and the different things I’m doing.

“I haven’t woken up and gone ‘I’d love to coach’ – if anything, I would love to maybe down the track be in some type of development role. Whatever it is, I’d love to stay involved in footy.”

Erin Philips and her wife Tracy. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Phillips, speaking to promote her autobiography Erin Phillips: Inside and Out, said she would be more qualified to be a head coach of a basketball team, the sport she played and coached professionally for 17 years.

“If someone asked me what would you be better at, I’d be a much better basketball coach than I would be football – by a mile,” she said.

Phillips was a development coach and assistant coach at WNBA team Dallas Wings from 2017-2019.

Phillips works for the AFL in its football operations team, concentrating on player and club engagement, and appears as an expert commentator for Channel 7’s AFL coverage on Sundays.

She has also signed up to play and mentor juniors back at her first basketball club Woodville Warriors – though conceded the legacy of more than 10 knee operations has left her spending more time on the sidelines than on the court.

Erin Phillips after winning premiership and best-on-ground medals in the inaugural AFLW season in 2017. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Media

She made her professional basketball debut for the Adelaide Lightning in the WNBL when she was just 17 in 2002 and in her six years with the Lightning was a league all-star three times and a part of the team’s 2007-08 championship.

Her basketball career spanned 15 years and included two titles (with Indiana Fever in 2012 and Phoenix Mercury in 2014) in the WNBA. She also starred in competitions in Israel, Poland and Slovakia.

She was also a long-time member of the national women’s team the Opals and won gold at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and Brazil world titles in 2006.

She is also a two-time Olympian and her memoir reveals a sometimes fractious relationship with long-time Opals head coach Jan Stirling, who she described as “volcanic” and a “drill sergeant”, and her heartache at being the Opal player to not get on the court during the gold medal game at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Erin Phillips: Inside And Out, with Samantha Lane, published by Hardie Grant, is out now

Originally published as Former Adelaide Crow and Port star Erin Phillips has ‘no aspirations’ to become an AFLW coach