The one-game-a-year home side for the next three seasons had edged past the final ANZ Championship titleholders in a momentous 61-59 win at the Silverdome.

The Magpies’ sixth victory from 10 matches solidifies them into final four with a game-and-a-half advantage over their rivals on Sunday.

The Queenslanders will be forced to win all four of their encounters against the Thunderbirds, Vixens, Giants and Swifts should the Magpies drop at least two games of their final four rounds.

“This really had a lot of weighting for us across the next part of the season and going into finals,” coach Kristy Keppich-Birrell said.

“It had a lot of importance, but we prepared like every other normal game. 

“I was just absolutely rapt with the outcome.”

It was easy to understand how both sides were battling mid-table and seemingly evenly-matched. 

The Magpies were up by one goal at quarter-time, but the scores were levelled at the next two intervals.

The shooters had almost shadowed one another.

At one end, Jamaican giant Romelda Aiken utilised her 196cm frame to dramatic effect over Australian keeper Sharni Layton.

Aiken was hard to shift in front of scoring 47 goals at just over 90 per cent, but Layton stopped delivery 11 times in a resilient showing. 

“It’s hard when you’re a defender because you want every single ball,” the coach said of Layton.

“When you don’t get every single ball, you can see her belting herself up about it.

“That’s what makes Sharni Sharni and us competitive.

“She definitely put Romelda under pressure and that’s what we’re after.”

But it was Caitlin Thwaites that stood taller. The Magpies goal weapon finished with 43 shots from just 45 attempts.

Amid refusing to settle on just one preferred goal attack, Keppich-Birrell elected to make a change when after Cody Lange scored from 18 straight shots, her next two misses would be her last.

“Every player gets the opportunity to put 100 per cent out there, and whatever they’ve got for however long that 100 per cent lasts they’ll stay out there – then we rotate it through,” she said

“That’s the beauty of having three or four even goal attacks in the one team.”

The Firebirds had scored four consecutive goals for the only time in the match and that’s when Keppich-Birrell called for a strategic timeout.

Thwaites believed the move to Alice Teague-Neeld kept the side on target.

The lead never swayed out to more than five, but did so in the last four minutes.

“Cody really stepped up in shooting standards,” Thwaites said. “She took a lot of that load in the first half especially, and having Alice come on with fresh legs made sure we continued to have that drive.”

The Firebirds tried to close the four-goal deficit with 75 seconds left, coming within one inside the last half a minute of play before Thwaites put the result beyond doubt.