It was a place she did not expect to be standing, on the eve of a competition she had doubted she would ever join.
The England international – and qualified doctor – was with Jamaican Shamera Sterling, one of two key defensive signings for the Thunderbirds, who were distant wooden-spooners for the first two SSN seasons.
Having won just four of 56 quarters and none of their past 27 games, the revamped Thunderbirds were tipped to show some improvement in 2019 under new coach Tania Obst – partly because, well, it was difficult to imagine them being much worse.
But then came round one against the 2018 grand finalists the West Coast Fever. Sterling’s mighty effort against reigning league MVP Jhaniele Fowler was a huge factor in the 61-60 upset, as was Guscoth’s work out the front at goal and then wing defence.
“The mentality when I came was very much that the past was the past and that they wanted there to be a refocus and a reset on everything, and that came from the players, the coaching staff, about the type of netball that we wanted to play,’’ said Guscoth, the club’s co-captain with Chelsea Pitman.
“I think Tania was really keen to create a different culture to what’s been here before, so this was hopefully going to be kind of a new era, everyone kept saying, so the mods was buoyant that it started off well.
“But we’re also wary that you’re only as good as your last performance, and if we go out on Sunday and we don’t back up what we did last Sunday, then we’ve not really done ourselves any justice. Everyone’s really clear that that was one game in what’s a really long season and there’s still a lot of work to do.’’
Guscoth admits that Sunday’s meeting with the GIANTS-slaying Swifts in Sydney on Sunday is a second round clash few would have predicted to be between two unbeaten teams. And if she considers it a healthy situation to have last year’s bottom four in the top four at this very early stage, then, personally, she is thriving after being exposed to an elite full-time netball environment for the first time.
The impressive 27-year-old is combining Thunderbirds duties with a medical research project at the University of Adelaide, given that the demands of the hospital-based work she is pursuing in her non-sporting career would be difficult to combine with the requirements of the ever-more-professional SSN.
She has earned 23 caps for the Roses, but was watching the Commonwealth Games triumph from the staff room during a night shift at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, having put her international career on hold for much of 2016-2018 before returning for the past two Quad Series, as well as contests against Uganda and Jamaica.
“At the time when I qualified as a doctor, England netball went full-time in its programming and that was probably the most difficult decision that I’ve had to make,’’ she said.
“But I’d just qualified and had just got a job as a doctor and knew that I probably had to work for a couple of years, realistically, before I could take a break, otherwise it would be really difficult to go back into it.
“You spend six years at medical school and you don’t really want to just toss that out the window, so at that time I decided to focus on work, and then still played in the English Superleague back home but couldn’t commit for the international program.
“Even though it was hard having to put it on hold, everyone here in this room will talk about tough decisions that they’ve had to make. It forms part of the journey, doesn’t it?’’
For Guscoth, this leg has taken her in an unexpected direction. Obst is a former England assistant coach, but during the 183cm Team Bath defender’s international hiatus, so the pair had not met when the new Thunderbirds coach picked up the phone.
“I don’t think I ever thought I could get here, so when Tania called me it was the biggest shock in the world. I didn’t think it would happen to me, but a lot of English players have come through here and speak so highly of it.’’
Including Mentor, another SSN co-captain and the most famous Rose of all.
“Oh Geva! Geva’s a poster girl for all of us!” laughs Guscoth. “She’s all of our idols. Don’t tell her I said that, but I fan-girl Geva all the time. To have someone who’s at the pinnacle of their career but still as humble and as giving as she is I think is just amazing.’’
