A tale of two opposites unfolds this coming Sunday in Croke Park, Dublin. Ireland: the actual Grand Slam 6 Nations champions meet the wannabe mini-Grand Slam aspirants, Australia, the Southern Hemisphere easybeats.

Or if you prefer, it’s 4th plays 3rd. It’s North vs South. The Plodders vs the Aristocrats. New order vs Old order. It’s time to fit up the Aussies.

Sunday’s test match is a game of contrasts, with both sides looking to improve their status – Ireland must kick on from their European triumph and achieve a top 3 ranking that they’ve had only twice since the IRB rankings started. (Coincidentally, Ireland was ranked third in the world when the first rankings began in September 2003, with Australia in 4th spot. A few weeks later, the positions of supremacy had changed.)

Ireland will be looking to restore that supremacy with a win in front of their home support.

Playing in Croke Park is not for the fainthearted – a point made by Rocky Elsom as he arrived in Dublin for the second leg of their tour. He said lip-reading is required in order to hear yourself above the 80,000 plus din.

And this time, despite his undoubted popularity with the home crowd, Elsom knows the Irish fans will be baying for his blood and those of his teammates.

Australia have long been associated with playing running rugby as part of their team ethic and culture – almost mythically so, in the view of some.

In contrast, Ireland were seen as the marauding team of mud-slingers, who are up for a fight for the first 60/70 minutes before fading and failing – heroically of course. Witness their World Cup games when they lost to the Aussies by a single point on two occasions.

No longer.

The fortunes of both teams have gone in opposite directions in the last 14 months. Elsom left Ireland as it hit the heights of securing their first Grand Slam in over 60 years, winning the Heineken Cup for the third time in four years, and topping the Magners League two years on the trot.

Australia has been in the doldrums all year, with Super 14 and 3N titles well beyond their grasp.

Has there been a better time for Ireland to play Australia then?

Well, the overall win record stands 70% in Australia’s favour with some healthy whippings handed out to the boys in green – home and away. Though, there have been some hiccoughs more recently.

In 2006, Australia arrived in Dublin having squeaked a 25-18 win in Rome – during which the Wallabies trailed by two points at half-time and played what one Aussie scribe called “abominable, aimless football”. Before that had been a 29-29 draw in Cardiff. “We just didn’t play,” grumbled John Connolly. “Our selection of what to do and when to do it was poor.”

It didn’t get any better. In a rain-drenched, but free-flowing match at Lansdowne Road, Ireland thumped them 21-6.

In June last year, at the Telstra Dome, Ireland failed to capitalise on the mesmerising IRB Try of the Year finished off by O’Driscoll, and through lack of accuracy, came up short: 18-12.

Despite Ireland having had the better of the match, Australia coach Robbie Deans would not openly admit Ireland deserved to win. “History does not record the detail. History records the score,” he said, ironically managing to provide a memorable quote that did the exact opposite.

Ireland’s line-up that day was: R Kearney; S Horgan, B O’Driscoll, P Wallace, T Bowe; R O’Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, R Best, J Hayes, D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell, D Leamy, S Jennings, J Heaslip, with Flannery, Reddan, Ferris and Dempsey among the replacements.

One year on and there’s a few new faces in the likely line-up to be announced this Wednesday.

Kearney, Bowe and Fitzgerald are in the regular back-three berths with Keith Earls hovering on the sidelines in case Kearney doesn’t recover from injury. Darcy and Paddy Wallace are fighting it out for inside centre, and Tomas O’Leary should have the No 9 shirt with Reddan as back-up.

In the backrow, Ulsterman Stephen Ferris has the blindside spot, and Denis Leamy may get No 8 having had better form than Heaslip so far this season.

There’s a new pair of caps for prop Cian Healy and hooker John Fogarty who are likely to start in the front row (assuming Jerry Flannery doesn’t recover.)

Unlike New Zealand, Australia hold no bogeys for this Irish team, and O’Driscoll & Co have got the scent of victory and winning big in their nostrils, with 8 wins out of their last 9 games. (The only loss was against NZ in last 12 months.)

Australia has one strong advantage: its squad is already up and running and played 3 matches with the English test victory notched on their belts.

Ireland hasn’t played together for over 6 months.

The provincial clubs have been stuttering in the Magners League, but at the international break, Leinster are on top, with Munster and Ulster sharing equal points directly behind them.

The two front-row newbies will pack down alongside the old warrior, John Hayes. Loosehead, Cian Healy, has had his best season start of his career, and is itching to earn his first cap. His Leinster team-mate, John Fogarty, will be equally enthusiastic to start hooking for Ireland.

Up against a far more experienced Aussie front row, scrum time will be tough for Ireland. Hopefully, the years of wisdom directly behind the front row will compensate in the shape of O’Connell and O’Callaghan.

Leamy, if he displays his current form for Munster, will give the Aussies a major headache, and Wallace’s ability to score from short out will keep the Aussie forwards honest. Genia is going to have a major rep coming into the match, and Ferris will be on his toes.

The story goes that the Irish squad avoids Ferris in training: if Ferris hits him in the tackle, Genia will know all about it.

Fogarty has been hitting his jumpers in the Leinster line-out better than Jackman and has been rewarded with a senior place. Hopefully, he’ll have got used to the Munster formations by the time Sunday rolls around.

The two Os will continue their Munster partnership as locks, with O’Connell expected to lift his game back to the dynamic heights of the last two years.

The lineout is supposed to be Australia’s weakness, so the expectation is that Ireland will punish them, on both their own and opposition’s throws. If they can secure quick ball, then the Irish backline can really get moving.

Elsom will have briefed his team-mates on the Leinster players though, and it’ll take more than Leinster-style wrap-arounds to penetrate the Australian defence.

If Kearney plays, his breaks into the line and general catching and counter-attacking skills should cause a few Aussie hearts to stop. Bowe slashing through the ranks alongside him might make them terminal.

Ireland aren’t too shabby in the defence stakes, either.

They had the lowest try against count in the 6 Nations, and the Leinster backline particularly, Darcy and O’Driscoll, are one of the best in Europe at nullifying attacks last season and continued this season.

Inevitably, there are weak points.

One rests with O’Driscoll and his tendency to rush up and create a dog-leg behind him. Cooper and Giteau will be watching to pounce.

Likewise, Fitzgerald’s covering back, tackling and catching high balls can be suspect. However, going forward this season, he has been sizzling.

And of course, the burning question is whom Kidney will pick at 10. The Irish rugby commentariat has O’Gara in position, with Sexton on the sidelines. If he is, I’ll be hiding behind the couch every time Genia fires out the ball to Giteau or Cooper in attack.

Or worse, Adam Ashley-Cooper runs at him. (Think 10 metres from the England tryline and two defenders in front of you…)

Deans wants to win this match – by any means necessary, I think. Kidney needs to experiment but wants to win.

Pragmatism may prevail in which case the encounter could be full of high kicks, numerous breakdowns, and the old Munster favourite dragged out for another outing – pick ‘n’ gos with one pod out. Let’s hope not interminably.

It’s said that these November Internationals are about establishing bragging rights between NH and SH. That’s the easy headline. For Ireland, these internationals should be about much more than that.

The old order of dominance by the big 5 rugby nations is changing as professionalism starts to seep into the next generation. Ten years on, the second generation of Irish players is emerging with no knowledge of the amateur era, and no historic inhibitions to hold them back.

Ireland is poised to change that order along with smaller rugby nations such as Wales and Argentina. The next WC is less than two years away, and teams who want to succeed need to make a statement now. Ireland’s target now should be to reach the World Cup final in 2011.

One of their pool opponents meets them next Sunday. It’s time to lay down a marker.

I suspect that Kidney has little time for the easy point scoring and one-upmanship associated with North vs South contests. He doesn’t do flashy or ostentation. But there’s a little fact that’s gone largely unnoticed this year up to now.

If the Ireland team continues to win as it’s done so far this year, and beats Australia, Fiji and South Africa in November, apparently it’ll be the first team in the professional era to go unbeaten in a single calendar year.

Nothing stupendous or record-breaking – just a little marker of satisfaction Declan Kidney will have his eye on as he prepares his team for the coming tests, next year’s 6 Nations and NZ ’11.

If Ireland can play to the best of their ability, and their players stay injury-free, they should be too good for this relatively fledgling Australian team.

Nevertheless, if they turn up rusty, and don’t have coherence at the scrum and fast-striking ability, Australia should be too good to let the opportunity pass to drive home the stake.

It should be a tight game, but an exciting one. I hope and pray it doesn’t rain for two teams who like to run with the ball.

With their football counterparts up against the odds in Croke Park on Saturday playing France for a WC spot, the spotlight will be off the Ireland rugby team somewhat.

That’s where they’ll want to be. Revving quietly on the sidelines, waiting for the off.

A final thought.

One player is certain to receive a standing ovation on Sunday. Brian O’Driscoll will earn his 100th test cap, 94 for his country and 6 for the Lions: a notable achievement that confirms him as one of the most popular and successful Irish sportspeople of his generation.

The crowd may also rise for his opposing captain – well, half of them.

For Elsom, his last match at Croker was the famous victory with Leinster over Munster in the Heineken semi-final. After the Heineken Cup final earlier this year, Brian O’Driscoll famously remarked that the Australian captain was ‘remarkable’, and ‘the best player he had ever played with’.

A fine compliment to a worthy warrior that invited comparisons with a host of team-mates from Leinster, Ireland, Barbarians and the Lions over the last decade. It has stood Elsom in good stead and made him a favourite with the Irish fans.

Next Sunday, we’ll see whether Captain Elsom is the best player Captain O’Driscoll has ever played against.