This is Adelaide… with Erin Phillips
This portrait of the first woman to be inducted into the Adelaide Football Club’s Hall of Fame hangs in a national gallery.
When the AFLW Crows team defeated Melbourne in the Grand Final in 2022 there was a celebration in Rundle Mall.
It was there that Adelaide photographer Alex Frayne took this image on 35mm kodak tri-X film and it was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in that same year.
In June, sporting great Erin Phillips made history as the first woman to be inducted into the Adelaide Football Club’s Hall of Fame.
Phillips is also one of Australia’s finest female basketballers, she returned home to South Australia from the United States to join the Adelaide Football Club late in 2016.
The Adelaide Football Club says her arrival instantly lifted the Crows, and her transition to a dominant AFLW force was immediate, setting high standards for the new women’s competition.
Phillips had won two WNBA titles, a FIBA Women’s World basketball gold medal and played at two Olympic Games, winning a silver medal in 2008.
“Although Phillips had not played football regularly since her early teens, she was instantly a star in the AFLW and helped inspire the next generation of fans and players,” the club says.
Selected to co-captain Adelaide for its inaugural season in 2017, by the end of the campaign Phillips was named best on ground in the Crows’ famous Grand Final win against Brisbane.
She was named the AFLW’s best and fairest player, also winning the AFLW Players’ Association Most Valuable Player award and the title of the Crows’ Club Champion.
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Phillips was named best and fairest again in 2019, when the Crows won their second premiership; and she became a premiership player for a third time when the Crows defeated Melbourne in the 2022 Grand Final.
Shortly afterwards, Phillips announced that she had been signed by Port Adelaide – the club she has always dreamt of playing for, following in the footsteps of her father Greg.
Phillips was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2025, joining her father Greg, who had been a star in the SANFL with Port Adelaide and Collingwood in the VFL.
Alex Frayne is an Adelaide-based photographic artist and regular contributor to InDaily.
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