The Australian Netball Players' Association (ANPA) had threatened industrial action after Anne-Marie Corboy and Kathryn Harby-Williams lost their positions on the Netball Australia board, while several high-profile players, including Layton, signed a strongly-worded letter in which they also threatened to form a breakaway league.

Players staged their own protest across round-nine matches over the weekend after opting not to strike, linking arms around the centre circle before the start of each game in a show of solidarity.

After helping her Magpies to a three-point win over the former ladder-leading Giants, Layton reiterated the players' stance.

"We were pretty devastated and disappointed with netball as a sport and what we had to deal with this week," Layton said.

"They know where we stand, they know our thoughts and we just want an independent board that is going to move our sport forward.

"The last thing that we wanted was for that to distract from the sport and how great it is and where it is growing.

"As players, we don't have a lot of control when it comes to the governance of the sport. All we can do is what is in our control and that is putting out a great product there for the fans and broadcasters and everyone that is still contributing to our sport.

"That's what we wanted to do today and that was the main reason that we didn't go on strike because we didn't want it to take away from how great our game is.

"We didn't want it to become about the players. We still need everyone to know that there is an issue higher up and that's why we stood in the circle at the start to highlight that and hopefully there's now been a light shone upon that.

"That will continue to be something that is looked at. For us, it's not something that we can let distract from our game, we're all standing strong together as eight teams and every player is behind us.

"We just wanted our voices heard.

Layton said losing Corboy and Harby-Williams from the Netball Australia board was a massive blow for the sport.

"We have lost two incredibly empowering, influential women from the board of our sport, who were taking us to great places," Layton said.

"They worked extremely hard and came up being replaced. That was pretty devastating for the players this week.

"It's a pretty powerful thing to stand there with all of the girls, and knowing that all the girls across the country did the same thing. How strong we are as a collective and that we all have each other's back is a really empowering feeling."

Layton's was one of 18 signatures on the ANPA letter. Injured Giants captain Kim Green and teammate Sam Poolman also signed the letter, as did Swifts duo Abbey McCulloch and Paige Hadley.

"We've had really good chats this week," Green said.

"The Players' Association have always had our back. We put all our trust in it and that's just where we're at with it."