VERY few players can say they changed the game. It is the mark of a Hall of Famer.

Greg Phillips did - and in a grand final. He also changed the fortunes of the Port Adelaide Football Club - at three critical times, in a 343-game career at Alberton that was captured with premierships. Eight of them.

The second flag - the 1979 triumph against South Adelaide at the gale-swept and rain-soaked Football Park - changed the game and the rule book after Phillips emerged as the masterstroke in coach John Cahill's tactical playbook.

Port Adelaide won the toss (at three quarter-time of the reserves grand final) to have first use of the gale favouring the northern end at West Lakes. After scoring five goals to none with this advantage, Cahill relied on Phillips to protect the lead from centre half-back - but not as a defender checking a potentially match-winning forward as became his strength in other games.

Phillips was instructed to repeatedly punch the ball out of bounds at boundary throw-ins as the "third man up" while Robert Dolan played as the traditional ruckman. It was a defining tactic that kept the ball out of South Adelaide's hands and "chewed up the clock" on the timekeepers' watches.

Port Adelaide kept the lead at half-time, won the lowest-scoring SANFL grand final in 57 years - and the league immediately changed the game's protocols with time-on allowing Phillips to enter the history books.

Last night, Phillips entered the Australian Football Hall of Fame as Port Adelaide's 13th inductee - and first since AFL premiership captain Warren Tredrea in 2014.

And "Kutchie" is there as one of the game's longest-serving and much-admired players who three times was the cornerstone of Port Adelaide's pressing need to win premierships.

Phillips' first of eight premierships was the drought-breaker in the 1977 SANFL centenary grand final. His fifth in 1988 ended Port Adelaide's frustration during the 1980s and set up the club's platform for an AFL licence bid in 1990. His eighth in 1992 - appropriately as club captain - successfully started Port Adelaide's second bid for AFL status.

All eight flags were won with Cahill as coach in a partnership that defined both men - and continued to Collingwood where Phillips played 84 VFL games in a career tally of 447 league games (the third highest in Australian football behind former Port Adelaide team-mate Craig Bradley, 501; and fellow South Australian Peter Carey, 467).

Cahill could week after week build his teams around Phillips - and did so more than 300 times, both in the SANFL and VFL.

"As a coach, if you are wanting one player to build your team around it is Greg Phillips," Cahill said.

"I cannot remember when I ever had to move Greg from centre half-back because he was getting beaten. You could put Greg at centre half-back and never worry as a coach. He was a pleasure to coach.

"Greg was so good - strong, courageous and the safest pair of hands you would have ever seen. And he was too smart for forwards who tried to run him out of defence.

"When Greg was near the ball, the half-back flankers and back pockets around him would take off to get the ball from Greg. They knew Greg would not make a mistake.

"He was very unselfish, particularly with those long left-hand handpasses that allowed his team-mates to take a risk. We encouraged the players around Greg to take those risks knowing Greg would not let us down."

Phillips is another of the prized recruits from Port Adelaide's old recruiting zone on the Eyre Peninsula, at Minnipa where he grew up as a Sturt supporter.

"Funny that; I was born in '59 and growing up in the '60s there was Sturt winning (in the SANFL) and Richmond winning in Melbourne, so with only the radio to listen to for footy and Sturt winning I just jumped on board," Phillips recalls of his youth.

"I was on the family farm at Minnipa, between Wudinna and Ceduna on the West Coast along Highway 1 to Perth; played all my junior footy there and went to Port Lincoln for schooling and then played for Lincoln South where (future Port Adelaide team manager) David Keyes was my coach.

"David put the word out to the Port Adelaide hierarchy to come have a look - and it all went from there."

In 1976, Phillips joined his older cousin Neville at Port Adelaide - and endured the torment of losing the supposedly unloseable grand final to his former Sturt heroes. He never lost a grand final again.

"You do have to pinch yourself," Phillips says. "How lucky was I when I know at other clubs there are players who chalked up 300 games and did not get to a grand final, let alone win a premiership. And I have eight.

"To come from the country, hit the city and see how big the SANFL was with Port Adelaide was a real eye-opener. It was a professional club back then. What I saw in 1976 after we lost that grand final - to see the hurt and crying among the families who supported Port Adelaide - left me thinking, 'Oh my God, they do take it seriously over here'.

"And then 1977, with the win, there was enjoyment and love - and pride everyone had in the success. For me, it was a dream come true. But I also took notice of all the supporters and people who loved the club and what the premiership meant to them. I learned how much Port Adelaide was a family club - and how they demanded success.

"I am always asked which of the eight flags is my favourite. I was just lucky to have been part of a great football club made up of so many great players. You become mates for life in a football club.

"Like in 1976, I was in a team with players, idols such as Bruce Light, and others I admired while growing up. And when you get to Port Adelaide you learn how much they love the game - and just how much it meant to them to be successful."

Phillips finished his premiership run in 1992 as team captain at a time when Port Adelaide needed success on the field to generate new credibility for its second AFL bid.

"The pressure was on," Phillips recalled. "Every premiership means a lot to me. I don't look at the 1992 flag any more favourably than others simply because I was the captain."

Phillips return from Collingwood in 1987 was followed by Cahill in 1988 - and this proven partnership became a key part of achieving the premiership success that underpinned Port Adelaide's rise from suburbia to the national AFL.

"We did not know that at the time," Phillips said. "You look back now and think how hard it was to win those three in a row (1988, 1989 and 1990) - in particular that flag in 1990 when the world was against Port Adelaide.

"It was a huge effort. We demanded upon ourselves to win. It was instilled in the players.

"And with John Cahill, you had self-belief. He was a coach to inspire you to play well. I can understand why people were fearful of Port Adelaide when Jack built teams that were hard at the ball."

The nickname "Kutchie" - long admired by North Adelaide premiership ruckman Michael Redden - was coined in 1976 when Phillips was the baby face of a hardened football group.

"(Port Adelaide premiership ruckman) Bob Philp gave me the name," Phillips said. "It all started in 1976; I was 16, turning 17 in March. I was the baby of the A-grade team. They would tickle me under the chin ... kutchie, kutchie, koo. It just stuck. I was a 'baby' then - and now I am the big baby now."

Phillips, the father of AFLW pioneer Erin, enters the Australian Football Hall of Fame to complete the triple after being an inaugural inductee at the SA Football Hall of Fame and a member of the Port Adelaide Hall of Fame.

Port Adelaide's other national Hall of Fame inductees are (in the Hall's categories) -

Players: Craig Bradley, Nathan Buckley, Haydn Bunton senior, Russell Ebert, Andrew McLeod, Geof Motley, Bob Quinn, Warren Tredrea, Gavin Wanganeen.

Coach: John Cahill, Fos Williams.

Administrator: Bob McLean.

The Australian Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony concludes this evening.

GREG PHILLIPS

Born: March 26, 1959

Played: 343 games for Port Adelaide (1976-82 and 1987-93).

Also represented: Collingwood 84 times (1983-1986) and South Australia 20 times.

Goals: 93 for Port Adelaide. (12 at Collingwood).

Honours - Port Adelaide premierships (8): 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992; Port Adelaide premiership captain, 1992; Port Adelaide best-and-fairest, 1988; Port Adelaide captain, 1991-1993; Port Adelaide Greatest Team at centre half-back; All-Australian, 1980; Fos Williams Medallist, 1982 v WA at Subiaco Oval; South Australian Football Hall of Fame, 2002 (inaugural inductee).

Michelangelo Rucci is a selector for the Australian and South Australian Football Hall of Fame.