The 13-strong Diamonds squad announced on Thursday is nothing if not flexible. It is also a fitting reward for form for some players who must have feared they would either never pull on the gold dress again, or in the case of Laura Scherian, not at all.

First though to the size of the squad. Thirteen is a weird number but there is no getting away from the need to cut your cloth to fit your budget. I suspect that coach Lisa Alexander would have loved 14 players to travel with, if only for the mathematics of playing intra-squad matches with two teams of seven.

But 13 it is. Perhaps assistant coach Megan Anderson, who has been quietly suiting up for social netball this year, will be required to fill the gaps.

Having said that any increase in squad size is smart, even if it is just by one for the moment.

Historically Diamonds teams have generally travelled only with the match-day squad of 12. Great from a budgeting perspective, rubbish for injury management. The mad scramble to find and deliver a replacement player in the case of someone going down is less than ideal.

The other upside is that it allows the coach to maintain pressure on everyone to perform. The match day team is chosen on training day form, so there is no let up on the players. Every time they step on court it is selection time.

The downside is managing the player who does not get selected. It is tough when you are the only one left out while your team goes into battle, even for the most mature and professional.

Given the Diamonds are up against the reigning world champions who have lost only one of their superstars from the World Cup in Casey Kopua, they will need to name their strongest outfit in each of the four matches. There is no room for playing nice and giving everyone a turn, so there is the possibility that the same player gets left out multiple times.

It's obvious that the way the squad has been selected the midcourt is in play and that is where the omission will be made from. With four goalers and four defenders (two of whom in Jo Weston and Maddy Turner can play wing defence), there is only going to be room for four midcourters in the team.

With Kelsey Browne's knee injury there was always going to be one new midcourter in the mix. The fact that there is two indicates a couple of things. First, it is an area that the selectors feel they need to focus on at the start of the new World Cup cycle in order to get a sense of who will step up and do the job internationally, and secondly every era has a talent glut, and at the moment it is in the midcourt.

Ash Brazill makes her return to the Diamonds. Netball Australia

That selectors can name five players and still leave out Vixens captain Kate Moloney and Firebirds leader Gabi Simpson indicates just how strong Australia's stocks are in this part of the court. I am looking forward to seeing how it is mixed up, and to how players like Laura Scherian and Ash Brazill add to the mix. Both are incredibly exciting selections, and ones which both players can be forgiven for thinking would never happen.

What their stories tell – for Brazill not being selected in the Diamonds since making her debut in 2015, and for Scherian thinking her professional career was all but over when she was dropped from the Firebirds squad in 2011 to not have a contract for the next six years – is of two players who are incredibly persistent.

For them obstacles represent opportunity, and they both have the maturity to take this opportunity that they have created by way of strong Super Netball form and give it a good shake.

Brazill's selection also seems to indicate a desire to have a player who can win ball back. While you suspect her propensity to float off her player in order to take intercepts may have been seen as a negative in the past, it surely is a desirable characteristic in the wake of Australia's World Cup loss, where a single intercept could have changed the course of the match in the dying moments.

A player with the ability to win ball back and create momentum for her team is worth her weight in a gold dress.