Farm kid who mixed it with hard men
GREG Phillips reckons if he had a shy moment in his life, it was meeting his Port Adelaide teammates at a 1976 pre-season camp in the McLaren Vale winery region.
Growing up on the South Australian west coast, Phillips was playing under-16 colts footy at just 12. He claimed an A-grade best-and-fairest trophy at Lincoln South at 16, the year before becoming a Port
Magpie in the SANFL. There were some tough players who made their presence felt in the country, so Phillips had already had his character tested.
But here were Russell Ebert, Peter Woite, Carl Fragomeni, Brian Cunningham and Darrell Cahill. Phillips knew them as legends.
“Wow,” he recalled. “I just stook back and learnt from those guys.
“Here were all these Port Adelaide champions and I was just the new kid on the block.”
In his early days, Phillips was “skinnier compared to now” and was used on the ball as a ruck rover.
That was the start of a career spanning 427 senior games. As a defender, Phillips was one of the greatest Port Magpies of all time, as well as devoting four seasons to Collingwood. Now he is an AFL Hall of Fame member.
“It has blown me away to be in the Hall of Fame,” said Phillips, 61, the father of AFLW star Erin Phillips. “I was just a country boy on the farm.”
The move to Collingwood in 1983 was made easier with the appointment of Jack Cahill as coach and Port star Mark Williams being captain.
“I loved every minute of it at Collingwood,” Phillips said.
“I became part of the Shaw family and every second Sunday I was over there having a roast, mixing it with Tony, Ray, Neville and Kelvin.”