England enjoying netball role reversal

England are taking a shine to being the team to beat in world netball and have challenged Australia to knock them off their perch.

Winning the Commonwealth Games gold medal in April has injected the Roses with a confidence that has rarely been part of their makeup when facing the likes of 11-time world champions Australia.

The Quad Series clash in Newcastle on Wednesday is a chance for the Roses to assert themselves, according to veteran shooter Jo Harten.

No longer the plucky underdog, England have the experience and quality to consistently win at the top level, Harten believes.

That was emphasised by their 13-goal dissection of New Zealand last week, a classy performance which was followed by coach Tracey Neville's summation that they'd under-performed.

"So it's a different mindset. We've been chasers - chasing down Australia, chasing New Zealand, and now we're the ones to be chased," Harten said.

"It's pretty exciting, we've earned that.

"Tracey's given us the confidence to be this team that we are so let's enjoy it. Definitely ride that wave right now."

The increasing number of England players in Australia's Super Netball league has helped accelerate their improvement.

However, Giants Netball goal shoot Harten insists they haven't adopted an Australian mentality or playing style.

"We get confidence from our own English Super League and our own Roses program," she said.

"We're playing the English way which is really pleasing to be part of. Hopefully it's setting new ground for the young girls back home who want to wear the red dress."

Australian coach Lisa Alexander conceded her team were beaten by a more desperate English side in the Games final five months ago.

She hopes they've learned from it, having had a chance to clinch gold if they'd been more clinical in the dying minutes.

"We should have been able to pull that game out at the end because we were ahead and we just had to score off our centre passes," Alexander said.

"We'd been really good at doing that but at the end of the day, England just wanted it a little bit more than we did."