Erin Phillips is bolstering her coaching development and learning a lot by spending time in Port Adelaide's men's program. Image: Michael Sullivan.

PORT ADELAIDE captain Erin Phillips has been relishing her time developing her coaching skills as part of the AFL’s Women’s Coaching Acceleration Program.

Nine successful applicants were announced in June last year including Phillips, Daisy Pearce (Geelong) and Chelsea Randall (Adelaide), with the program intended to increase the number of women in coaching roles and expedite their development.

All nine women will work toward achieving their level 3 AFL coaching accreditation and will be employed by their AFL club for at least two years in a coaching capacity.

Erin Phillips pictured at a recent training session at Alberton. Image: Michael Sullivan.

Phillips has been spending at least two days a week with the men’s playing group at Alberton, even travelling for the team’s first away game in Melbourne across the weekend.

“It's been fantastic,” Phillips said.

“I’m learning heaps. Not just around the coaching part of football but also around footy ops and how it's all run, which I’m really enjoying.

“I’ve just immersed myself in as much of it as I can. The boys and the coaching staff have been so welcoming, and every time I walk out of Alberton, I’ve learned something new. It's been awesome and I’m very grateful to be in this position.”

AFLW senior coach Lauren Arnell has also joined the men’s program across both SANFL and AFL, with the pair absorbing valuable knowledge and information to transfer across to the AFLW program when pre-season begins.

Arnell worka with the AFL side throughout the week, and also has a gameday role coaching the forwards in the SANFL program. Image: Isabel Gawel.

“It's so awesome working alongside Loz as well, and we're always bouncing ideas back and forth off each other during training,” Phillips said.

“I’ve learned so much, not just to share with my teammates, but also to help my game personally. When you see the game from a different perspective, from a coaching perspective, it does help your own game. There are definitely things that I’ve already started implementing into my own game and that I’ll be transferring over into AFLW.”

Phillips and Arnell have been welcomed warmly into the men’s program, with the integration helping to strengthen relationships and improve collaboration between the men’s and women’s programs.

“All of the players and coaches have been super supportive and often are asking questions about how our team’s going and how they’re doing in the off season,” she said.

“I’ve been able to work with most of the players at some point and they’ve all been awesome, so I certainly can’t pick favourites.”