A jump from seventh into fifth - which in a 10-team league is as significant as going from lower mid-table to the heart of the play-off chase - still wasn’t enough to satisfy Leeds Rhinos’ director of netball Liana Leota at the weekend.

It’s fourth place or nothing for the former New Zealand international, whose slow-starting Rhinos team are finding their stride in Super League at last.

Whether it is too little, too late to gatecrash the top four depends on whether they can continue winning until the end of the season, most crucially against Severn Stars in Huddersfield on Saturday week, the team they need to lose three of their last four games to catch and overhaul.

“We’ve been waiting for this moment, I knew once we’d get a few wins under our belt we’d push ourselves up there,” said Leota after a win over Team Bath last Friday that saw them rise to fifth.

Geva Mentor and Leeds Rhinos, left, are still in the race for a Super League top-four berth (Picture: Ben Lumley Photography)

“But I’m greedy, I’m still looking at those two games we lost by one point. I need to see the cup half-full.”

On successive wins that have kept their season alive, Leota added: “I feel like we’re starting to see areas of improvement each week, we focused on our start and the score was 20-15 after the first quarter, it probably could have been more.

“The girls are starting to implement our game plans for longer, just when we need them to be with these critical games coming up.

“We will still attack it week by week and not get too far ahead of ourselves.

"It’s like what I’ve been telling them in the games, take it quarter by quarter.

“Staying involved in the moment has been important for us.”

'Staying involved in the moment has been important for us' - how Leeds Rhinos Netball kept their season alive