She had to share the plane with the rowdy Australian contingent still celebrating after their dramatic 58-57 win over the Silver Ferns in the final.
The Dunedin-based coach joined several high-profile New Zealand coaches, including Canterbury Tactix coach Leigh Gibbs, for an Ifna (International Federation of Netball Associations) coaching conference which coincided with the world championships.
It was a valuable learning experience mixing with some of the world's elite coaches, and one which should serve her well once the Steel starts assembling in preparation for the 2012 ANZ Championship.
It was also an opportunity to do a little sly recruiting. "Leigh and I were ribbing each other a little bit about that," Southby said.
"We were obviously looking and I have some chatting to do with Nat [Steel co-coach Natalie Avellino] and Julie [Paterson, Steel chief executive] now."
Asked if the 2.06m Sri Lankan shooter Tharjini Sivalingam might be suiting up for the Steel next season, Southby could not suppress a chuckle.
"No. I don't think so. The standard is quite different. Some of my schoolkids could probably go out there and perform really well against some of those teams. New Zealand and Australia are a long way ahead of some of the other countries."
The Steel has three players confirmed for next season, with former Silver Ferns shooter Jodi Brown joining the returning Wendy Frew and Hayley Saunders.
With the world championships over the Steel is stepping up its recruitment drive.
"All of the players are now free to talk to and we are working really hard. Signing players is difficult because you don't always get fast answers out of them. But we're obviously very keen to get some more names down on paper and find out where we need to fill the gaps."
As for the final, Southby was still disappointed.
"We had our chances but just couldn't nail it. We looked a bit hesitant at times and they really needed to keep attacking like they had been doing at the start of the game. But the Australian team came out hard in the last two quarters and really took the game to us."
