Why Erin Phillips’ dad, Port Adelaide legend Greg, cried proud tears for his AFLW champion daughter

That video. Erin Phillips watched it for the third time at the season launch in Melbourne last Wednesday night. Got emotional. Again. Expects she will each time she sees it. “It was special. A special moment.’’

That video. Starring a burly 343-game Port defender whose youngest daughter crossed from powerhouse Adelaide to join Port in April after three flags and All-Australian gongs, plus two league best and fairests, in six years.

Loved it, that video.

Did Greg Phillips?

“Initially he was a little bit embarrassed. He’s this big ex-football tough guy,’’ Erin says. “But he’s like, ‘That’s how you should be. Guys should cry, you know. Guys should cry’. It was just genuine emotion, and you can’t cover that up.

“Initially I think he was more (worried) that I was embarrassed that he was crying that much. I was like, ‘Of course not. Dad’. I know how much he loves his girls and me and mum, so it wasn’t a surprise, cos he’s a pretty emotional guy.

“I just love the fact that if you put dad and I aside, here’s a guy who used to play footy pretty bloody well, and gets to see his daughter have the opportunity that she does now, overall, within the AFLW.

“It was just another moment for a dad, or a mum, seeing their daughter have an opportunity that wasn’t around for women seven years ago. It was special, and obviously even more special that my dad has worn the No.1 before, and not in a million years would he have ever thought that I would get that opportunity, because AFLW wasn’t around.

“There was probably 37 years of emotion, of never thinking that this would ever be possible for one of his daughters.

“And here it is. It’s happening.’’

*****

Phillips relinquished the Crows’ co-captaincy she shared with Chelsea Randall from 2017-20 because she believed it was the right thing, and the right time, to allow the next generation of leaders to shine.

Returning to an official leadership role three years later was not on her radar, says Phillips, who was nevertheless voted into the position — and the No.1 guernsey, as is the Port tradition — by her teammates. No arm-twisting required.

“I think the biggest thing for her and for any true leader is they want the people they’re leading to want to be led by them, and with Erin that was overwhelmingly the case,’’ says foundation Port coach and former Carlton and Brisbane midfielder Lauren Arnell who, at 35, is two years younger than her star recruit.

“So I think it’s just a really nice and appropriate way to acknowledge the standing she has in the group. The players were really overwhelming in saying, ‘This is our captain’.’’

While Port Adelaide had been similarly clear in targeting the game’s biggest name, Arnell stressed a culture-over-ability philosophy. “In building a team amongst what already is rich history in Adelaide, having the right people in the right environment is No.1 for us,’’ she says. “And that starts with Erin.’’

Yet Phillips insists that her own ambitions were less, well, black and white (with a splash of teal), having originally agreed to join Port in 2015, before she joined the Crows when the league’s start date was fast-tracked to 2017 – a time her preferred club’s finances were focused on its exhibition-game push into China.

Finally, last August, one of the last four AFLW licences found its way to Alberton, leading to an agonising personal choice between a club and people Phillips adored, and a new frontier at a place she had always known, alongside youngsters who were not even born when her elite sporting career began.

“So it purely came down to this was just a new challenge and a team that just so happened to be a club that I had so much connection with from an early age — obviously since I was born — and I just felt a sense of this is where I was meant to be at this point in my career,” Phillips says.

“I don’t even wish I could change the path in that I’m just so so happy that I got to play for the Adelaide Football Club. Just grateful to be a part of a team that years and years ago I used to sit in the stands and absolutely hate and boo against. So to call it a club that I absolutely love, I’m just so grateful how everything worked out.

“In the end, with Port Adelaide I just felt the young person in me, the young girl that was hanging over the fence watching her dad play and coach and grew up a part of, I felt like that was a new purpose for me, a new challenge and something that I really do believe I would have had massive regret if I didn’t do it.’’

Which still didn’t make it easy, she insists, and Phillips admits to being saddened by the assumption that she was automatically going. When she and wife of seven years Tracy Gahan, her former Adelaide Lightning WNBL teammate, were still discussing and weighing up the pros (plenty) and cons (actually, none she could identify), of both choices.

Once it was made, though, it felt right. No second-guessing or doubt. Just excitement, plus the comfort of knowing how strong the Crows remain, and relief, such relief that it was done. So that all the questions to family, friends and teammates about her intentions would end, and all could move on.

The goal-kicking midfielder says her standards are as high as ever despite the change in circumstances, while Arnell has already seen ample evidence of her many personal and professional qualities during the 10-week pre-season ahead of AFLW’s Season Seven, which starts less than five months after the climax of No.6.

“Obviously Erin’s achievements in both basketball and AFL speak for themselves,’’ Arnell says. “Her ability to bring people together, to lead and to perform, and her deep understanding of what a high performance environment is has been wonderful for me.

“And having played against her and been on the other side, there’s obviously a lot of people in the game that you always would prefer to be on their team than against them, and so to work alongside Erin and to build our Port Adelaide AFLW team with her it’s an honour.’’

The family ties add another layer of connection and romance, of course, which Arnell appreciates.

“It’s a story I think both the footy club and Erin have been able to tell really nicely: the importance of where you grow up and being able to come home to that, and for Erin that’s Port Adelaide Footy Club, which is really, really special,’’ says the product of tiny Clarkefield, north of Melbourne.

“I think about each of us, and my family home and where I grew up is still something I like to drive past if I’m ever in country Victoria, and so Erin’s stories of growing up at the football club and growing up with her dad, who was a star performer, it’s just so special that now that’s her place to perform and her home.

“I think anyone can relate to that, and it’s really special that for her it’s Port Adelaide.’’

*****

The blue-collar Alberton Oval of Phillips’ childhood is a different place to the Alberton of today. Then, it was all about the SANFL’s mega-successful Magpies; now it’s also the AFL Port Adelaide Power’s redeveloped and much-improved HQ.

“Things have obviously changed,’’ Phillips says. “When I was growin’ up it was the real old traditional local league community footy, where people were standing around, there was just a sea of people crammed in watchin’, havin’ a beer and pie or a pastie.

“I loved goin’ to watch my dad play, and getting to go even in other venues to watch Port play. There was something really special, though, about Alberton that I just loved being there and I felt really at home.

“I’d have a footy under my arm all the time. When the siren went at quarter-time I’d be on the field, kickin’ it, cos you could get on the oval and you could actually get around and listen to the coach chat, back in the day, so I was either kickin’ the footy around, or I was weaving my way around a team of Port Adelaide blokes’ legs to find dad, to listen to a John Cahill speech.

“I’d grab ‘grippo’ off of the trainers, have filthy, dirty hands by the end of the day. Really good memories. I felt like I was always in a place I was meant to be when I was down there watchin’ dad.’’

The old Football Park at West Lakes felt like a coliseum to young Erin, who imagined it to be the biggest stadium in the world, with Alberton a close second. She was fascinated to watch veteran boot steward Alfie Trebilcock, who arrived in 1968. He was still there when the little girl who has become a sporting great returned to wear the club colours, now with three children of her own.

So well-known to others but also perhaps not, in some ways, for Phillips is a measured figure who, one senses, never completely lets down her guard.

So what’s something unexpected that Arnell has discovered up close?

“That’s a good question. I think a lot of people make assumptions about people in the public eye, and so probably one [lesser-known] element of Erin is that she likes to have a joke and have a laugh and make sure that the environment is fun,” Arnell says.

“Alongside that she’s very professional and able to drive a high performance standard but she also loves a laugh and enjoys a bit of banter and a practical joke here and there’s so that’s something I probably wouldn’t have assumed about her.’’

*****

After two ACL ruptures, the most recent suffered during the 2019 Grand Final in which she was nevertheless named MVP for a second time, and decades of the usual wear and tear, Phillips is a little banged-up physically. Yet she is also a master at managing the most chiselled physique in the game.

“There’s no doubt being 37 that you move better when you’re 27, there’s no hiding that,’’ she says. “But I pride myself on how I look after my body and get it ready, and the things that I eat, the sleep that I get, and all that.

“Honestly, I feel really good, and I’m not sure in terms of how many minutes I’ll be playing in the midfield compared to forward or back or anything like that. I’ve just got myself into the position to play wherever Lauren and the team need me to play.

“But I must say I don’t enjoy training in the cold weather. That’s not fun.’’

Phillips notes wryly that she is now referred to as “37-year-old Erin’’ — for once you turn 30, she says, there’s no escape. Yet she continues to treat age as an irrelevance to both her present and her future.

“I’m going to keep playing until my body says, ‘Absolutely no more, we’re done’, or I actually don’t enjoy playing any more, and both of those I feel far away enough that I’m still ready to go and still being able to contribute to a team.

“So if I can contribute then, yeah, I’ll keep playing.’’

*****

In that vein, with ‘41-year-old Lauren’ Jackson preparing for her fifth FIBA Women’s World Cup next month in Sydney, Phillips quips she must have a minimum of another four years of AFLW ahead.

She is thrilled for her mate LJ, the pair having been long-time Opals teammates, including on the world championship-winning squad from 2006, and the group that claimed silver at the Beijing Olympics two years later.

“I’m just so, so excited for her, knowing where she has been, what she’s gone through, and now to where she is at, I’m so stoked for her,’’ says Phillips of Jackson.

“On one hand I’m really, really surprised, because genuinely didn’t ever think that she might walk properly again, after what she’s put her body through, and then another part of me is like, ‘It’s Lauren Jackson, this woman can do whatever she wants, she’s the GOAT, so not surprised’.

“But I’m just genuinely happy for her, and I’m happy for Australian sport, because this is an incredible moment to have someone like her suiting up for the Opals again and in a massively respected team and I just can’t wait to see her play.’’

So, can Phillips — who was the Opals co-vice-captain at the Rio Games, and played nine WNBA seasons with five clubs for two titles — categorically rule out doing a Jackson, and attempting a comeback for the 2026 FIBA World Cup?

“Oh, no! God, no… In basketball? No, no,” she says.

“I will play basketball again at some point, it’ll be probably be for the Bearcats, my junior club, when I’m done playing with footy.

“But I have a strong agreement with my knees that we shall never return to full-time running up and down the floorboards again.’’

Phillips — who counts Opals forward Cayla George among her closest friends — and triple Olympian Rachael Sporn, now Port Adelaide’s AFLW Operations Manager, both plan to attend several games of what the footballer describes as “massive for women’s sport”, given how rare it is for Australia to be hosting.

Six years after retiring, she still misses playing hoops. Laughs that she misses it even more on cold, wet wintry Adelaide days. Oh, for a reliably climate-controlled indoor stadium, rather than slush and open skies.

“I came in after training [recently] and it was literally sideways rain and I kept getting hit by icicles and rain and I looked at Rachael who was doing some work and I was like, ‘I think we should go back to basketball!’.

“I love playing basketball and the game itself and what I was able to experience and the teams that I was able to play with and I definitely miss it. But also playing footy came at the right time of my career and I’m grateful to have to have been able to have done both.’’

Phillips expects she will eventually be remembered as “the footballer”, given the code’s higher profile and her doubts that even half of Australians could recall she had a career before AFLW.

“I suppose I’d just like to be known as a great women’s athlete. Someone who was able to play two sports,” Phillips says.

“Basketball, that gave me a career overseas and around the world, and football, that gave me an opportunity to play a game that I grew up loving, and to do it semi-professionally here in Australia. So either one. If you want to know me by that, that’s great.’’

We suggest that perhaps a case could be made that she was a better basketballer, given the competition, globally, but more important footballer, given her trailblazing role as the first great of a developing game.

“OK … I don’t know,’’ she considers for a moment. “I’ll leave that to you.’’

What Arnell can confirm is that Phillips’ celebrity, which grew during an 18-month stint of FM breakfast radio she recently scaled back to one weekly guest slot, is not something she seeks.

“But it would be almost accurate for you to say every single person in Adelaide knows who she is,’’ Arnell says.

*****

Phillips and Texan-born Tracy have three children: Drew, three, and five-year-olds Brooklyn and Blake. The twins are doing swimming, soccer and tennis this term. Basketball is next.

Whatever they eventually choose, if anything, is fine by their parents, but there is one non-negotiable when it comes to sportswear, at least, for a deal has been struck.

“I’ve said to the kids, ‘You can still wear your Crows tops – when mum’s NOT playing against them’,’’ says Phillips, with the inaugural AFLW Showdown having been given prime-time Friday night billing on September 30.

Meanwhile, it all starts this Saturday, against fellow expansion club West Coast in Perth, and Greg Phillips will be present when Erin, wearing his old No.1, leads out her new team.

One suspects there might be tears.