{"id":883900,"date":"2026-09-08T01:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T01:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/883900\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T01:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T01:52:18","slug":"erin-phillips-and-bruce-mcavaney-honoured-as-norwood-player-makes-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/883900\/","title":{"rendered":"Erin Phillips and Bruce McAvaney honoured as Norwood player makes history"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Australia’s Football Hall of Fame has inducted its first woman, former Port Adelaide and Adelaide Crows player Erin Phillips, at the SANFL’s Magarey Medal count on Monday.<\/p>\n

Phillips was one of four inductees recognised. Long-serving AFL commentator Bruce McAvaney, former Norwood player Neil Button and former Sturt player Tony Burgan were also granted South Australian Football’s highest recognition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Phillips was raised in Adelaide, where her father Greg was a multiple premiership player for Port Adelaide in the SANFL. She played junior football until her teenage years, but switched to basketball due to limited female football opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She played for the Adelaide Lightning in the WNBL and later made her mark on the world stage as a double WNBA championship player.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bruce McAvaney called more than 1,000 AFL games. (Supplied: Channel Seven)<\/p>\n

Returning to Australia, she joined the Adelaide Crows as captain for the first AFL Women’s season in 2017. She played in three AFLW premierships, twice won the AFLW’s best and fairest award and was named best-on-ground in the 2017 and 2019 AFLW Grand Finals.<\/p>\n

She later joined Port Adelaide for the 2022 AFLW season as its inaugural captain.<\/p>\n

“All I wanted to do was to play footy and be like Dad,” Phillips said.<\/p>\n

“I could’ve missed that opportunity, and I get so many women that come up to me that played or just wish they had the opportunity [and] that missed the boat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“So, every game I felt that I was never going to take it for granted.”<\/p>\n

McAvaney began calling SANFL matches in 1978 and went on to call more than 1,000 VFL\/AFL games and 20 grand finals during his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I felt like I’d reached Mount Everest by calling a South Australian league grand final in 1983,” McAvaney said. “I had no idea what would happen afterwards.”<\/p>\n

The Norwood Football Club’s Nik Rokahr won the Magarey Medal for the SANFL’s best and fairest player on Monday night, after recording one of the highest vote tallies in the medal’s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was named best afield in 10 of Norwood’s 18 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Nik Rokahr of Norwood Football Club won the 2026 Magarey Medal. (Supplied: Channel Seven)<\/p>\n

His success makes him the first player to have won both a Magarey Medal and a WAFL Sandover Medal. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“[It’s] a little bit harder to compare my year in the WAFL, but I feel it was my strongest season,” Rokahr said.<\/p>\n

Norwood last week won through to the SANFL Grand Final, when it will compete for its 32nd title against the winner of Sunday’s preliminary final between Sturt and Woodville-West Torrens.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia’s Football Hall of Fame has inducted its first woman, former Port Adelaide and Adelaide Crows player…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9126,25914,64,63,9121,155378,453687,453688,453686,6082,137725,85,453689],"class_list":["post-883900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-adelaide-crows","tag-afl-womens","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bruce-mcavaney","tag-erin-phillips","tag-magarey-medal","tag-neil-button","tag-norwood-football-club","tag-port-adelaide","tag-sanfl","tag-sports","tag-tony-burgan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}