TIGER PHIL LOSES HIS STRIPESBy Tony De Bolfo
Herald-Sun
Thursday, October 11, 1990
PHIL EGAN was looking forward to 1991.
Free of injury and full of vim and vitality, here was the chance to make his 10th senior season of football with Richmond, his life membership season with the club. . . one worth remembering.
But, today, Phil Egan is on football's scrap heap.
It all bappened at Punt Road on Monday, when Egan was called to a meeting with Richmond coach Kevin Bartlett and general manager Cameron Schwab.
"In short 'KB' said I wasn't part of the '91 plan," Egan said yesterday.
He (Bartlett) said: 'You might be better in new surroundings and we'll help you find new surroundings'. I then had an appointment with Cameron Schwab, so I knew something was going on ... we talked about pay cuts, which I was prepared to look at in a fair way. but there's no use discussing that if you're not wanted by the match committee or the coach."
Egan had always wanted to play out his days at Punt Road and, having played one year with the under 19s and reserves and the next nine with the seniors, he was very much part of the furniture down there or so he thought.
"It would always have heen hard to saddle up with someone else. but that reality has come now," Egan said.
"And I suppose it won't hit me until I, hopefully, run out with another League club."
Egan is a modest man, but he firmly believes that, at 27, with US senior matches to his name, he still has a future at AFL level.
He concedes his football over tbe past couple of seasons has not gone the way he would have liked.
InjuriesHe has had a horror run of injuries. which include:
* In 1986, he broke his ankle.
* In 1988. he was unavailable for most of the year after breaking his sboulder.
* In 1989, he missed five matches with a hamstring complaint and, after his return, fractured his skull.
This year he has had persistent cartilage problems.
"So, in terms of 'KB' saying lack of continuity in games and, therefore, poor form through my unavailability, maybe he feels I will struggle," Egan said.
"But I believe I'm still good enough to pIay league footy, given an injury-free run and reckon it's someone else's bloody turn to cop injury.
"If things pan out, and I might be okay, then I'll be rapt. If it doesn't, I'll still play footy somewhere and still bloody enjoy it."
Egan is still under contract until the end of 1991 subject to being retained on Richmond's senior list, which is now an impossibility.
"I'm disappointed in Kevin and the match committee not to have kept me in their plans for a year I was gearing up for," Egan said.
Schwab said the club wished Egan good luck for the future.
(*) TIGER Stephen James also hopes to be picked up in next month's national draft.
James, 25, parted on amicable terms with Richmond two weeks ago after an injury-plagued run at Punt Rd over the past two years.
He missed nearly all of 1989 with a knee injury and dislocated his shoulder in this year's pre-season competition. He managed to play 12 of the last 15 games.