The last time I spoke to Phil

Sam tells of coach, mentor

SAM Siggins never played an AFL game in three years on the Crows’ list, but will never forget the care Phil Walsh showed for him — right up until the last conversation they had.

Highly respected in AFL circles for his football mind, the former Adelaide Crows coach also set extremely high standards of every one of his players, be they a star or a player like Siggins, whenever they set foot in the club.

“An example of what Phil was like was we weren’t allowed to walk [during training],” Siggins said. “We had to be running at all times and I think Phil showed what his character was like in the media and some of his interviews.

“But deep down behind the coach as well he was just a really good man, he helped me so much obviously after having that training accident with Brent Reilly.”

That training accident turned Siggins’ world upside down. In his third season at the Crows since being picked up from Lauderdale, Siggins’ knee accidentally fractured Reilly’s skull in a drill at Thebarton Oval in February 2015.

Reilly was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery and the 203-gamer would not play again.

Siggins started to lose his passion for being an AFL footballer and his mental health began to deteriorate. And while he had played no AFL games, this was where the care Walsh had for every one of his players came to the fore.

“He [Walsh] sat down with me and I will never forget the last conversation I had with Phil before [he died], one of the things he said to me was just keep moving forward and obviously it was a tough period for me and he would call me every day after that incident,” he said.

“We’d just have a chat about life and that was one of the big things about Phil, yeah footy was important to us and him but at the end of the day there was more to life than footy so he helped us off-field as well which a lot of coaches may not do that and he helped us massively.”

So like his former Crows teammates the death of Walsh — just 12 games into his senior coaching career at Adelaide five years ago — hit Siggins hard.

“I got a missed call from [assistant coach] Darren Milburn at about 5.45am and I let it ring,” Siggins said. “I called him back and he sort of explained a little bit to me but never really explained too much detail but told me Phil had passed away.”

Walsh’s death, after being stabbed by his son Cy who in 2016 was found not guilty of murder due to mental incompetence and ordered to spend the rest of his life under mental health supervision, sent shockwaves through Adelaide.

But Siggins needed to get out of Adelaide and return to Tasmania for his mental health after Walsh’s death.

“I was struggling a bit mentally before [the training accident] and once it happened I lost a lot of passion for footy and Phil helped me with a lot of that,” he said.

“Once Phil passed away having that person I could talk to on a daily basis taken away hit me even harder.”