Everyone wants a piece of Erin Phillips

The AFLW star become a legend of the code after another grand final win for the Crows at the weekend... but what will she do next?

AFLW star Erin Phillips ahead of the Grand Final this week. Pictured on April 14th, 2021, at Adelaide Oval.Picture: Tom Huntley

The AFLW star has become a legend of the code after another grand final win for the Crows at the weekend... but what will she do next?

Something unthinkable happened in the Phillips family five years ago. In early 2017, Erin Phillips - now wife, mum-of-three, and a former WNBA superstar - donned a red, yellow and blue shirt, and joined the Adelaide Crows AFL team.

To understand the gravity of this move, let's go back to 1992. 

Port Adelaide had claimed victory over the Magpies at the MCG. And a crowd of AFL fans stormed the field to celebrate the victors. A young girl with a shock of blond hair sprinted with them, eventually jumping into the arms of Port Adelaide's captain. 

Her father, Greg Phillips.  

At only seven years old, Erin Phillips pins this moment as one of the most pivotal in her journey to AFLW stardom. A moment where she saw her father achieve sporting greatness and thought: “I want to do that.” 

Since then, Phillips, 36, has undeniably done it.

The dual-sporting wonder has conquered the women’s basketball world then become one of the country's best AFLW stars.

At the weekend, she helped carry the Adelaide Crows to a thrilling victory in the AFLW grand final, thrashing Melbourne 29-16.

Erin Phillips with her dad Greg. Credit: Port Adelaide FC.

And now, she’s facing possibly the toughest decision of her career: stay playing with her beloved Crows, or to “walk across the road” to her dad’s darling team, Port Adelaide?

See, Crows, her adopted family, and Port Adelaide, which is her blood, are bitter rivals. How did she end up in a totally different sport then? 

After wowing crowds across Australia, by 21-years-old she was whisked to the US for the WNBA where she won championships with the Indiana Fever and the Phoenix Mercury.

The Australian Opals snatched her up for more than a decade, where she played two Olympic Games and winning a historic silver medal.

But her heart remained on the football field.

She had given the game up at age 13, because “the avenues weren’t there” for women to play AFL.

“There was always that missing feeling, I always wanted to kick the winning goal at the MCG and win a grand final,” she said in 2015.

So when a pathway opened up in 2016 when AFLW grew legs, Phillips jumped at it.

And so did her biggest supporter, her dad. 

"Once I came back to footy, it was very different because I suddenly had a guy who knew everything about set-ups," Phillips said in 2020.

"He knew when I was doing the right thing or the wrong thing, and a mine of information to help me be better."

She initially pitched for Port Adelaide - the team she grew up supporting and watched her dad battle for - but the club was never nominated for an AFLW licence. The Crows did.So 

So Phillips did the unthinkable - she joined the Crows. 

Since then she’s become nothing short of a legend, crowned best and fairest, best on ground and the leading goal kicker more than once. You name it, she's done it, all while raising three children with her wife Tracy.

Erin Phillips with wife Tracy Gahan (L) and kids, Brooklyn 4, Drew 17 maths, Blake 4. Erin is starting on Mix Brekkie show on Monday, Jan 11Friday 8 January 2021 Pic Roy VanDerVegt.

She's crawled her way back from defeat. She's endured suffering. A brutal ACL injury during the 2019 AFLW grand final took her out for the better part of a year, before returning in 2020. 

She’s a staunch women’s sporting advocate, campaigning diversity and inclusion.

And partly thanks to her, AFLW is on the brink of change.

From this week, all 18 AFL men’s teams will have a women’s team too.

It leaves Phillips with the question: does she jump ship to Port - the team her father once dedicated his life to?

The sporting world is jittering with rumours on what Phillips will do next.

Phillips was tight-lipped when asked about her future after Saturday's game.

“There’s been a lot of noise, a lot of people talking about what’s next," she said.

"That’s something my wife Tracy and I will sit down and talk about and see what’s next in life. There’s more factors than just one simple choice for me."

Meanwhile, Port Adelaide chairman David "Kochie" Koch said "of course" the club has their eye on Phillips... perhaps a clue as to where she's headed.

"Of course Erin is on everyone’s radar, including ours. We want the very best team we can possibly get going into our first season," he told FiveAA radio.

All we know for sure is that Australia’s eyes will be pinned to the superstar, as we watch her make her next move.