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Phillips Adds Toughness To Sun(Hartford Courant, The (CT) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 23--The other girls stood on the boundary line, giggling. But for Erin Phillips, Australian Rules Football - or "footy," as it's called Down Under - was no laughing matter. "One of the games we played, one of the coaches was being a bit ridiculous," Phillips said last week from Australia. "He got three girls - I don't even know if they could play - but he got three girls and he put them on me. It was kind of a joke. It stopped when I sent them off crying." She was 12, the only girl on the all-boys team, the only girl that she knew of playing the sport, a mix of rugby and football. Her father, Greg Phillips, was one of the top players for Port Adelaide and Collingwood. Erin, the youngest of his three daughters, had an Australian Rules football in her hands by the time she could walk. At 13, she switched to basketball, but there's still a lot of footy in her. Phillips, a 5-foot-7 point guard, likes physical play, has a penchant for rebounding and doesn't shy away from taking a charge. Drafted by the Connecticut Sun in the second round of the 2005 WNBA draft, she opted to stay in Australia so she could play with the national team. But this week, Phillips, 20, will join the Sun in training camp as the long-awaited backup to Lindsay Whalen, who underwent ankle surgery over the winter but is expected to be ready to play this season. Training camp opens Monday for the Sun, who went to the WNBA finals last year but lost to Sacramento after Whalen was injured. The Sun will play their first exhibition game May 7 against Detroit and open the regular season May 20 against the New York Liberty at Mohegan Sun Arena. The Sun could have used Phillips last season when Whalen broke a bone in her left knee and sprained her ankle during the playoffs. "Last year, I could have come over," Phillips said. "But my first goal before I was even drafted was to make the national team and establish a role on that team. I finally got named. There were lots of tours and training camps I would have missed if I came over. "Last year, I really grew up. I traveled with the Australian team and got more experience with international basketball. This year, there was a lot of pressure for me to stay but I just think the timing is really right and I'm really ready to come across." Australian national team coach Jan Stirling wasn't thrilled that Phillips was coming to the U.S. "Erin has made a call which will obviously adversely affect her chances for a world championship berth," Sterling told the Australian newspaper, The Advertiser, on March 29. But Phillips, who averaged 15.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.9 assists as an Australian Women's National Basketball League All-Star for Adelaide, is ready to take her chances. She played for the Australian team that won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. She also helped her team beat the U.S. April 12 in the World Challenge final, 76-65. There, she caught up with Sun coach Mike Thibault, an assistant coach with the U.S. team. "I'm looking forward to being coached by him and all the challenges he can throw at me," Phillips said. The admiration is mutual. Thibault likes physical point guards. He has a former hockey player in Whalen. Now he also has a former Australian Rules football player. "She can get her body to the basket and take a hit like Lindsay can," Thibault said. "You need players who can get in the lane and take contact, finish a play, especially with the shot clock going to 24 seconds [from 30]." Phillips remembered watching her dad's football team play when she was young and wishing she could play. She started playing for an all-boys team when she was 7. "She'd say, 'Dad, let's go outside and play footy,'" said Greg Phillips, a halfback who played 445 games between 1976 and 1993 and was named to Port Adelaide's Greatest Team from 1870-2000. "She used to pretend the rubbish bins were goals. She loved the sport. She was skillful and very talented. She caught a lot of people by surprise." Like tennis player Lleyton Hewitt, who played against her in a charity match when Phillips was 17. Hewitt reportedly was "battered and abused" by Phillips. "She's one of the best girl footballers I've ever seen," Hewitt said on a Hewitt fan website, lleytonhewitt.biz. "She reads the play better than I do and she seemed pretty quick." "She was very strong in the legs," her dad said. "She could kick the ball 50 meters. There's a lot of body contact and tackling and that was the part she liked the most." Said Erin Philllips: "I was brought up being hit by boys. I can take the physicality." She began playing basketball after a friend invited her to tag along, but she had to give it up for a while because it interfered with football practice. She could have continued playing football - there were no rules against it - but she began to like basketball more. Now she only "mucks around," with footy. "I'll have to bring a football across and give [her Sun teammates] a lesson," she said, laughing. How about the other Aussies in the WNBA? Lauren Jackson - can she play? "She can kick a football," Phillips said. "I think every Australian can kick a football. I don't think you are Australian if you can't kick a football." |