Mention of Las Vegas is enough to send a shiver down the spine of any England women’s rugby league supporter.

Not because of lost life savings on the slot machines or undercooked food at the buffet, but because England fell to a record 90-4 defeat by Australia at the Allegiant Stadium in Nevada.

The meeting between England and Australia in March 2025 had been touted as the first in a three-match Test series.

It was meant to be the beginning of a regular Women’s Ashes competition between two historic rivals and form a large part of world rugby league’s charm offensive in the US.

Instead it served up a sobering reminder of the gulf between the Jillaroos – the winners of the previous three World Cups – and England, who shipped 17 tries in a lopsided affair.

The sight of Georgia Roche, who scored England’s only try, in tears at the final whistle and being consoled by her opponents only added to the suffering of English fans who made the trip.

The outcome also led many to believe the game in the northern hemisphere had reached a new nadir – with England’s World Cup prospects almost dismissed out of hand as a result.

However, it has also delivered a seismic shift in England head coach Stuart Barrow’s thinking.

Few of those selected for this tournament bear the scars of that encounter, with a youthful and dynamic squad featuring only six of the team from the Sin City debacle.

And Barrow says excitement, not trepidation, is the feeling in the England camp as they get ready to face the World Cup co-hosts in Perth on Saturday (10:05 BST).

“The youngsters coming in think that they can do better than what we did last time and I fully back that and believe them as well,” Barrow said.

“I don’t think they’ve [Australia] been beaten internationally for a long time, but that’s exciting.

“If you’re a young player coming into this group and coming to represent your country in a World Cup on the other side of the world, you want to play the best.

“People were saying, ‘do we want to avoid teams?’ When you come all this way, you want to pit yourself as an athlete against the best. So there is excitement among the group but they’re all very aware and very respectful of who we’re playing.”

While England thrashed Wales 70-6 in their World Cup opener, Barrow acknowledged their preparations to face Australia were dealt a “devastating blow” when Jasmin Strange picked up a serious knee injury in training on Tuesday, ruling her out of the rest of the tournament.

The absence of the Sydney Roosters second-row forward will be sharply felt by Barrow’s squad as they take on opponents who have lost just once since 2016 and remain the benchmark at international level.

And Barrow insists that while their most recent encounter is “buried” and “in the past”, he is using the chastening loss to help ensure England’s readiness for this competition.

“We learned a lot from it,” he added. “We’ve built on that through all our training over the last 18 months.

“We’ve got some senior players who were in that group at the time and it allows them to talk about what happened in that game to our young group. It allows them to talk about the difficulties, challenges and we can draw on the experience mainly from player to player.”

With Australia opening their campaign with a 40-0 win over Samoa, Barrow says his side will have to step things up from last weekend.

“We came up with some unforced handling errors on first. We weren’t at such a high completion rate but our skill with the ball let us get away with that,” Barrow added.

“You don’t get that opportunity when you play the world champions. If you’re giving cheap ball away, then you’re defending.

“We’ve done a lot of work about keeping possession and respecting the ball, but I also think we’ve got some exciting football in us when we get to the right end of the field to challenge them, so that’s our aim.”

Meanwhile, Australia hooker Keeley Nizza has made it clear they will not take England lightly.

“We definitely know about the rivalry,” Nizza said. “Last year we played them in Vegas and there was a big score, but I think England are a very different team now.”

Along with heritage player Hope Millard, Barrow’s new-look squad contains centre Connie Boyd, who crossed for a hat-trick on her debut.

They also have Super League’s Woman of Steel Jenna Foubister, 19, and her highly-rated Wigan team-mate Isabel Rowe, who kicked nine conversions alongside a couple of tries to record the highest points tally (26) in a single game by a female England player at a World Cup.

Barrow, who has previously called Rowe and Foubister’s partnership in the halves “telepathic” also has Huddersfield Giants winger Amelia Brown among his new group.

The 22-year-old – a dog groomer by trade – scored two tries against Wales, the second of which went viral on social media after she ran 107 metres to score it.

“My phone’s been popping off, so it just feels good,” Brown said.

“Some of my family don’t really understand social media. So they’re like: What does this mean? What does that mean? But they’re all really happy for me and really proud of me.”

Barrow added: “You don’t get many international tries that look like that, so to do that on your World Cup debut is outstanding.

“We want moments like that in our sport and especially the women’s game because the one million views [it has had] puts us on the map and hopefully that gets people interested back home in our sport.

“So anything like that is amazing. I know that Amelia’s been sharing a room with Jasmin Strange all week – who’s a social media queen – so she’s actually outdone Jasmin this time.”