Using assertions to validate responses that needs ordering

Hi,

I've got a response that is (correctly) returning the same set of tags multiple times.  For example:


    5261260886931759
    PERSON


    2211260886918334
    PERSON


    4131260886927904
    ORG


What I want to do is use an assertion to check that the response I'm receiving against a previously stored "correct" response.
I had used an XPath Match for this initially.  However I now know that for a specific database the order in which the records are returned is not fixed, therefore when they are returned in a differing order to the stored response then the assertion (correctly) fails, even though the reponse is valid

I've tried using XQUery

declare namespace soapenc='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/';
declare namespace soapenv='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/';
declare namespace v02='http://www.Test.com/party/facade/interfaces/PersonIsV02';

{for $x in //getPartyCandidateListResponse/candidateParty/party/partyIdentifier/string()
order by $x return {data($x)}}


Which correctly returns the partyIdentifiers in ascending numeric order


    2211260886918334
    4131260886927904
    5261260886931759


This would allow me to check that the correct records have been returned, which is useful, however what I really want returned is the full XML response, but where the sets of tags have been re-ordered.
I've tried a number of things which I don't bore you with (but can expand on if you're interested), however each of them has met with a varying degree of failure.

Is there a way to do this within SOAP UI?  Is it something that can be accomplished within XQuery, or is there a way this can be done within the Grovvy scripting?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Geoff