Leeds Rhinos Netball recruitment will be built around players buying into culture, says Liana Leota

Rhinos began their third season among the elite with one draw and eight defeats from the opening round of fixtures, hampered by two South African imports reneging on deals to join the club and Leota’s need to return to her native New Zealand on the eve of the season, two of the many reasons they started so badly.

But once they ‘drew a line in the sand’ as Leota puts it, Rhinos finished the season with four wins and a draw from their final block of nine games, rising off the bottom to a seventh-place finish in the process.

“There wasn’t one thing I could put my finger on as this is what changed, it was just lots of little things,” Leota, the former New Zealand international in her first season as a head coach, told The Yorkshire Post.

“Our environment always stayed strong, everyone knew we were still learning and trying to find our feet.

“We never lost the belief and hope, so when we started getting those wins and that consistency and continuity it was like we could actually do this.

“My belief never wavered, either, because our training was very good, the players were engaged, I kept telling them the stars will align soon because what I saw at training every week showed me something.

"It was just a matter of doing it consistently.

“I never lost the faith. I just wanted to find out what made it click. Even now I still can’t pinpoint it.

“We had the first round to get to know each other, to understand the game plan and style we wanted to play, and had to learn on the run, so by the second round of fixtures we were more confident in our abilities and the structure we were going to play.”

The major bump in the road came when South African Elmere van den Berg had to pull out of joining Rhinos through injury, news that was followed a week later by her compatriot Nicola Smith also not joining due to an injury rehabilitation.

“It kind of set the tone from the start and is something I’ve never seen before when two players don’t fulfil their contractual obligation,” said Leota.

“It wasn’t the easiest and it prompted a scramble to fill those two roles and we only got Jemma (Donoghue) over the line. Once we did that we were able to draw a line in the sand and say this is what we’ve been dealt, from here on we’ve just got to put our best foot forward. And I think the girls did that.

“If we had started like this, it could have been different - but you’ve got to play with the cards you’re dealt and hopefully it makes us more resilient and it will prepare us well for next season. We know what we need to do moving forward and that should make the transition that little bit easier.”

Superleague rules will actually make it harder. Players are only allowed to sign one-year deals meaning Leota, who is on a three-year contract as director of netball, starts with no players signed for next season.

The league salary cap is also going up for 2024, but Leota’s playing budget is not, meaning she has to hope players like captain Nia Jones, Caroline O’Hanlon, Vicki Oyesola and Brie Grierson etc, have seen enough in the culture being created to continue developing it.

“You just hope your players want to stay with you because you’re selling the right brand, the right culture, the right environment, the right coaches,” says Leota, who is confident in the club’s ability to retain a core of players.

“It makes it difficult to build a culture and I hope Superleague changes the one-year contracts, but for our recruitment right now it means competing for players against franchises with more financial backing is going to be that much tougher.”

So what are Leota’s squad building priorities in the seven-month-long off-season? She has already begun one-to-one meetings with Rhinos players, something she hopes to have completed before turning her focus to her coaching role with the England Roses ahead of this summer’s World Cup.

“The one-to-ones with the players have been eye-opening for me as a coach to learn what they need versus what I need,” says the 38-year-old.

“The way in which I coach, the way I approach things, I’m learning on the run. This feedback is going to be pivotal in how we move forward.”

On recruitment, she said: “My key thing is I have to get an import shooter in with Ellie (Bird) out and an import defender so that someone can play behind a player like Vicki, which would give her the opportunity to play goal D and goalkeeper, not just sit in the back.

“Those are our priorities at the moment, once we’ve signed those two positions we’ll try and sign the core of our group and just see what happens with everyone else.”