While the Wallabies eye a rare UK sweep, the starting centre pairing of Reece Hodge and Tevita Kuridrani are halfway towards matching the feats of all-time great Mark Ella’s own famous grand slam of tries.

The magnificent five-eighth scored in each of Australia’s victories over England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales on that famous 1984 tour to create his own slice of history.

No Wallaby has come close to repeating the feat on any of the subsequent grand slam attempts – until now.

Hodge is proving an impressive experiment at inside centre and crossed for dashing tries against Wales and Scotland, while Kuridrani has gone one better by also scoring a spectacular effort in last Saturday’s nailbiting win over France.

Despite being on the end of two of the tries of the tour so far, Hodge backed his revitalised teammate as favourite to emulate Ella.

“I know Tevita’s got three tries in his last three matches. He’ll be pushing for that feat I think,” Hodge said on Tuesday ahead of the showdown with Ireland at Aviva Stadium on Saturday (0430 Sunday AEDT).

Michael Cheika has made an effort to avoid addressing the possibility of Australia breaking the 32-year grand slam drought – and rising star Hodge sang from the same hymn sheet as the wily coach on Tuesday.

“But you never do it for the tries, it’s just luck of the draw how it goes in the game. We’ll see what happens,” he explained.

In his maiden season of international rugby, Hodge is quickly settling into the No.12 jersey – despite the pressure from fellow rookie Kyle Godwin, who put in an impressive debut against France on Saturday.

“You never really feel settled in the team – everyone’s always pushing each other for spots … I don’t think my spot is secure at all,” Hodge said.

“Obviously Kyle played an awesome game on the weekend and there’s always healthy competition in the backline.”