It's a mostly new-look Australian men's swim team that will take on Japan at the AIS pool this weekend but one that could even up the ledger with the women.
Out of the 10 rookies in this year's national team for the world championships, seven are male.
And senior team member Brenton Rickard said they were keen to gain a little bit back on their female team-mates.
''Obviously the girls are swimming fantastic at the moment and they have for the last couple of years and the guys have been a little behind the eight-ball,'' he said.
''But I think we had some outstanding results at the Olympics and I think we are coming along nicely.
''With that fresh blood we will really look to improve again for Rome.''
Australian men's coach for this weekend's Duel in the Pool in Canberra, Vince Raleigh, said the Australian men's stocks were in better shape than appeared.
''Our men are basically still very young, we don't have an ageing men's team as we did probably back in 2005,'' Raleigh said
''We had five medallists individually in Beijing and other than Sydney I don't think we've had that any more than one or two individual medals.
''We just didn't have that gold medal in Beijing and I think as a result everybody thinks the quality is not there. But I think we have a lot better quality than maybe the general public and some of the media give us credit for.''
Nevertheless, the Australian men face a tough ask against the Japanese. The Duel in the Pool is different from a normal meet, with swimmers competing for an overall team score, rather than just individual results.
Japan has two current world No1 swimmers, Irie Ryosuke (200m backstroke) and Ken Takakuwa (200m individual medley). Rising breaststroke swimmer Yuta Suenaga also impressed at Japanese world title trials last month.
For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times