Emma Sing believes England’s first defeats in 41 matches could prove valuable as the Red Roses begin building towards Women’s Rugby World Cup 2029, following consecutive losses to Canada this month.

After defeats in Toronto and Ottawa, the tourists will conclude their autumn against the USA Women’s Eagles at New Jersey’s Sports Illustrated Stadium.

At TD Place Stadium a week ago, Sing registered a consolation try and a conversion for England in their 31-22 loss.

Ahead of the fixture, the 25-year-old Gloucester Hartpury back believes that lessons learned now can aid the team in their long-term objective of lifting the Women’s Rugby World Cup trophy in three years’ time.

“We were never going to keep winning forever,” Sing said. “We did really well getting to 41 wins on the bounce.

“In order to like develop now, there is quite a young squad, there are some new players coming in, younger players in, especially around the forwards.

“We are just developing now and like the big goal is the next World Cup. It is not nice losing but we’re learning from that and we’ll be able to like turn that around and hopefully put on a performance this weekend.

“Now it gives us a proper opportunity to reflect and have those honest conversations that may not have been potentially answered if we were still winning. It allows us to develop better, to have the honest conversations and to improve.”

The USA will pose difficult questions for England. Under Jack Hanratty, the Eagles are a different team to the one that the Red Roses played in the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 opener at the Stadium of Light.

That evening, England were 69-7 winners. Coming into Friday night, the USA have won five games in a row. It is the first time they have achieved that feat since 2006.

Four of those wins have come against Women’s Six Nations teams. They have beaten Italy twice in October, hot on the heels of wins against Ireland and Wales in September.

Playing a direct, dynamic and abrasive style of rugby under their new head coach, England will need to be wary of the threats posed by Freda Tafuna, Georgie Perris-Redding and Bella Vogel.

Tafuna has scored seven tries in her last four appearances, while co-captain Perris-Redding has crossed five times in the same period. Vogel, meanwhile, arrives after being nominated for World Rugby Women’s 15s Breakthrough Player of the Year.

“They’ve been playing some really good rugby,” Sing said. “They’ve obviously been playing against some of our fellow Six Nations opposition, which is like a bit different for them.

“We are going to do our analysis on them. It will be a bit different from playing Canada again, but it’ll be quite nice, a bit of a change and there is going to be different opportunities for us to go after. The focus is really on like us and like making the adjustments to our game.

“We are just looking at this as the first step in our building blocks towards Six Nations. That is six months away but if we can start implementing stuff now then it will put us in a much better position come Six Nations.”