Spritesheets with 2d array of sprites

[Meladyfreshness]

Apologies if newbies ask this all the time, but I'm new to Phaser and don't know what to search for.

I want to make a spritesheet with m rows and n columns, where every sprite on the top row is the first cell of an animation that plays when the sprite is at that orientation. So if I have a sprite sheet that is 5 cells across and 3 cells deep, I want the middle top cell to represent a spaceship when it is facing forward with cell 1 of the animation of the spaceship jets, then the middle middle cell is the spaceship facing forward with cell 2 of the spaceship jets animation, and the middle bottom cell is the last cell of the spaceship jets animation. How do I tell phaser to loop through these cells on the spritesheet when no key is pressed? The left turn animation is similar - how do I tell phaser to loop through 3 cells of left turn animation in the 2d spritesheet plane?

Is there any speed advantage to having sequential animation cells next to eachother, or does it not matter so I could place all the animation cells in a line on the spritesheet and display any of them whenever?

(The spritesheet attached isn't finished, but you can imagine)

 

[rich]

It makes no difference if your frames are sequential or not. All that matters is that they're in the same base texture (image file / atlas)