The elite ruckman is no stranger to success.
He has won back-to-back Sam Cheatley medals, the prize for the Heathcote District Football League’s best-and-fairest, and last summer he was part of the Echuca Pirates Country Basketball League premiership-winning side.
And now on Saturday, he will be looking to add another accolade to his name — a football premiership
“I’m pumped, I can’t wait,” Phillips said.
“It is still trying to keep the mindset of it’s just another game, but it has just slowly been building and building.
“All the hard work is finally starting to pay off and hopefully we get a little bit of a reward at the end of the year.
“We got the award for first place, but if we can get the premiership medal, that is what everyone plays for.”
Phillips won his second Cheatley medal in as many years in August, but he said a premiership win this weekend would be on a different level.
“A premiership would mean a lot more in the fact of winning one with my brother and winning one with a heaps of blokes that you have done countless hours of running around and spending time with,” he said.
“The individual accolades are always good, but that team element is going to be the main goal for me.”
Phillips said a grand final win wouldn’t just be a big deal for him, but for the entire team and the Lockington and Bamawm communities as a whole.
“It’s a small community. Everyone is family here, everyone plays with their brothers and family,” he said.
"It’s going to mean a lot to not only us, but people around the community and the club and everyone who comes and watches.”
With everything on the line against Mount Pleasant, Phillips said his side’s mental approach to the game would be key — something that he said was missing when the two sides met in the qualifying final a fortnight ago.
“I think it is just the mindset. We probably went in with the wrong mindset in the first game just thinking that it is all going to happen for us,” he said.
“There is no tomorrow now, this is it. This is all that is left — one more game, four quarters and you have to give everything you have got.
“And that is the exciting thing — running out there and having nothing left and trying to find that extra little bit to get you going and get to the next contest and kick a goal or whatever it is going to be, put a shepherd on, it is going to be exciting just to really dig deep.”
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