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Erin Phillips sets AFLW alight amidst shadow of AFLX

Erin Phillips
Phillips’ four-goal return reignited the Crows’ premiership defence. Photograph: Mark Brake/Getty Images

After Erin Phillips near single-handedly caused his side to slump to their first loss the season, Western Bulldogs coach Paul Groves was effusive in his praise of the Adelaide captain.

“I’d like to see what Erin can produce at 100% after a year of footy... because if that’s her at 65-70% on her [injured] quad then God help everyone,” he said.

These were the words of a man at a loss, and in awe. Phillips, clearly still burdened, began the game up forward, where she endured the close checking of reborn tagger Libby Birch. But despite Birch doing what her coach called a “pretty good” job, by half-time she had scored all 14 of her team’s points. Then, when the game was on the line, Phillips pushed through the midfield in damaging bursts, finishing with an incredible 4.2 and 14 disposals.

The stats alone, however, say little about how dominant a display this was. Make no mistake, Phillips is the league’s best (and fairest) by a mile. And, as was evidenced from the reactions of those watching in the stands at Norwood, is the kind of player advocates for women’s sport can’t help but get emotional about.

Phillips embodies many of the competing emotions aroused by a league long overdue. On the one hand, her brilliance is the best advertisement for bringing the league forward from 2020: who can imagine this competition without her finesse and spark? On the other, it is a sad reminder of what might have been: how can she be this good when she was forced to quit the sport as a teenager? Just how good would she have been with the pathways in place to support her to play at the highest level, and to become professional in her chosen sport rather than basketball? Just how many more Erin Phillipses have we missed?

No doubt, Phillips possesses a freakish, natural talent for a game that might be in her genes. But it’s staggering to think just how talented she and so many other women turned away from the game could have been. In Phillips, the Crows are blessed with someone who at least stayed involved in elite sport, and so has the transferable, athletic capabilities to sustain a career at the highest level. They also have a natural-born leader.

Try as she might, coach Bec Goddard cannot dodge the question of whether the Crows are a one-woman side – and Saturday’s result will add only further fuel to that fire. “Everybody came up around Erin,” Goddard reluctantly admitted post-match. “Once she starts playing well, everyone comes up around her.”

True to Goddard’s word, Phillips’ mere presence seemed to get at least 20% more out of every one of her teammates on the field, and in so doing, offered some renewed hope that the pride of South Australia might yet have some fight left in a round where upset results blew the 2018 competition wide open.

For the Bulldogs, it was an unfortunate quirk of the fixture that they faced the Crows this week, particularly coming off the short break after playing in Brisbane in stifling heat. For the first half, they looked the superior side, albeit failing to capitalise on many scoring opportunities, and when Katie Brennan went down clutching her ankle in the final minutes, a disappointing loss turned significantly worse. They will be hoping her injury is a minor one, because, like Phillips, she clearly means much more to her team’s fortunes than any stats can convey.

The biggest shame was that the game of the round was not shown on free to air television – or nationally (except on Foxtel), while this would ordinarily have been a Friday night game, the honour of which was instead given to AFLX. This angered many AFLW fans, particularly in the context of Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon revealing last week that the AFL had cut the AFLW marketing budget to re-direct some of those funds to AFLX, not to mention the fact AFLW has so far been forced into punishing summer conditions on account of it being the AFL’s only “gap” in its fixture.

Just why the AFL introduced AFLX in a way clearly in competition with – and detrimental to – AFLW remains an unanswered and deflating question. Given the soulless display that was the AFL’s ill-conceived experiment in the Americanisation of its code, the juxtaposition was all the more startling. In Adelaide, and in Casey on Sunday, games were played with everything Australian rules fans love about the sport: passion, grit, drama, determination and serious skill. With the exception of skill, the circus of ‘zoopers’ and silver balls had exactly none of these.

Then, on Saturday night, AFLW fans were once again left wondering when Carlton hosted Brisbane at Ikon Park in poor visibility – with makeshift floodlights shone in the eyes of the audience more than on the field. Post-game, Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich didn’t hold back, calling the conditions a “safety hazard”. But, on television the next morning, CEO Nicole Livingstone said there was “no budget” for lighting “for the rest of the season”.

It’s hard not to interpret this as anything other than yet another blow to the burgeoning code. In the context of the AFL’s flashy, super-sized AFLX, surely the money is there to provide the code with the basics required to grow. One need only watch Phillips’ highlight reel – or indeed Emily Maguire’s stunning debut for Fremantle – to see what these women can do when given the stage and conditions conducive to success.