AT last the day of the big home game. A big day, but no cup final. The truth is that the challenge for Dublin's summit is about giving the nod to work in hand rather than going down in history as the place where momentous deals were brokered. It will also provide the symbolic culmination of Ireland's successful presidency.

That is not to say that some of the corner boys of the European summit scene, Jacques Chirac, John Major, and Helmut Kohl, may not pick a fight - and the 2,000 baying hacks in the stands are only dying for a scrap - but it will be of their making, not John Bruton's. The pitch is well prepared and the balls should Ball bounce true.

At the end of the day, however, all politics is local and not one of the team captains in Dublin will mind raining on Mr Bruton's parade if it means flattering headlines back home.

The argument about who scored the goals has started even before the kick off. Last Friday the French Foreign Minister, Mr Herve de Charette, poured scorn on the mediocrity of the level of ambition in the treaty changing Inter Governmental Conference and, by implication, on the Irish draft outline for a new treaty.

So we waited with bated breath for the Franco German contribution to the summit on Monday. Lo and behold a document whose detail matches almost exactly the Irish text - hardly surprising as the Irish collaborated most closely with both the French and Germans in arriving at their draft. An exasperated John Bruton accused the French minister of not having read the Irish text.

Nevertheless, in the certain knowledge that few hacks will have bothered to read both documents, we have enough here to provide the spin merchants with headline suggestions - "Chirac gives lead to timorous Dublin", "Triumph for Jacques". Allez Ia France!

Then there is Helmut Kohl's need to persuade voters back home he is not selling the D mark down the river.

Not to mention John Major's problems - we can confidently predict some robust defensive work from the man, even if the ball comes nowhere near him. It would be too much to expect the Tories to apply their own compromise single currency strategy of "wait and see" to other aspects of European policy.

The President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, has spoken in recent days of a looming "moment of truth" when member states will have to decide whether they want the Union to be simply an extended free trade zone. But despite some excitement in the British media, most observers acknowledge that the moment of truth be had in mind is not now but Amsterdam in six months time, when the real treaty changing bargaining will happen in earnest.

The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, spoke when he launched the presidency in June of the challenge of bringing the Union to the people, summing up the Union's challenge in the populist slogan "Safe streets, secure jobs, and sound money".

Whether he has brought the Union closer to its citizens is certainly a moot point but there is no doubt that the Irish presidency has broadly achieved what it set out to do in three key fields - decisive progress on the preparations for the single currency, a draft outline for a new treaty for the Union, and significantly enhanced co operation in the fight against crime, particularly drugs and the trafficking of human beings.

THE first two are very much part of the long term agenda of the Union - no less important or challenging for that - and the task for the Irish on both fronts was to step up the momentum and to pass on the baton to the next runner without dropping it. They have done both and won deserved praise all round for their efficiency.

On justice and home affairs, the presidency had set out to make its distinctive mark in an area which has been notoriously slow and cumbersome.

A combination of careful planning, bureaucratic adroitness - Irish officials bypassed a whole layer of middle ranking committees - and Belgium's horrific summer, however, served to concentrate minds and give an impulse to a package of joint action which will be approved this weekend. It genuinely brings inter state co operation in this field to a qualitatively new level.

Ironically, in so doing, as the British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, was quick to point out, the Irish have demonstrated the potential viability of the "inter governmental" approach to EU decision making, if streamlined and if there is a political will.

If all this can be done without sacrificing national vetoes or giving the Commission a role, why, the argument goes, all this talk of extending majority voting?

The answer is enlargement and the fear that a Union of 27 would be incapable of acting because of legislative gridlock. The majority of member states believes that the Union is doomed unless it deepens as it widens.

THE issue is, how much? The Irish draft treaty leans to what Mr Noel Dorr, the Tanaiste's special representative and the draft's main author, calls the "upper side of realism" - an attempt to clear deadwood and assess what is still a runner while pushing significantly in the direction of greater integration.

The summit is likely to agree that the Irish draft has left nothing out, that it is a good working basis for the next phase of discussions, reiterate its commitment to a high degree of ambition and to the Amsterdam deadline for agreement. But the debate may also provide plenty of opportunity for grandstanding.

At the time of writing only one element of the single currency package for the summit remains to be agreed - a definition of the circumstances in which fines will not be levied when single currency countries overshoot their deficit. But the overall package is impressive in its detail of how the single currency will work and how it relates to those outside. It will go some way to providing the predictability which markets require.

On jobs the summit will hear a report from Mr Santer on his Confidence Pact for Jobs and endorse a joint statement from Finance and Social Affairs Ministers reiterating commitment to the "Essen" strategy sound fiscal policies of debt reduction and convergence, combined with structural reform of the labour market and measures to help small businesses.

The summit is also likely to issue strong statements on the situations in Serbia and the Middle East and to have an extended debate on EU-US relations ahead of next week's Washington summit.

Half time entertainment the unveiling of the design of the eurobank notes.

Definitely not allowed on Mad cows.

Ole, ole, ole!