Roses and Adelaide Thunderbirds defender Layla Guscoth is returning to her job as a doctor in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The Suncorp Super Netball season has been put on hold until the end of June due to the crisis and the league announced on their website that Guscoth left Adelaide to fly back to the UK on Tuesday. She will be working at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
Her coach at Adelaide Thunderbirds, Tania Obst told the league: "Being a doctor, she wants to help and is looking to go back to the hospital she was at before.”
Guscoth was the Tbirds' co-captain last season and has spoken about juggling her two careers, a balancing act that meant she wasn't at the Commonwealth Games when England won their historic gold medal.
She didn't feel disappointed about not being there, though. Last year she told Telegraph Sport: "A lot of my friends and family said they thought it would be quite challenging. But no, not being in it for a couple of years I felt quite far removed from the actual process, compared I guess to girls who had been injured or not selected.”
She added: “I took a break as a conscious choice, and then wasn’t sure if I’d actually come back,” the Oxford and UCL graduate explains. “It’s hard enough trying to balance [work] with [domestic] Superleague because you’ll be on night shifts and you’ll have a game, but it definitely doesn’t work with going away for four weeks to New Zealand or Australia.
“But then seeing all the Commonwealth stuff just inspired me to say, yes I definitely want to do this.”
Guscoth joined the Australian side in 2019 and played with the Roses at last year's World Cup in Liverpool when her campaign was cut short after she ruptured her achilles tendon in the first quarter of the side's second match.