ON the eve of every league now, Cork managers don't so much issue team selections as statements.

Four years ago Donal O'Grady made it clear from the outset of his tenure that Ronan Curran was going to be his championship number six. This year Gerald McCarthy has started every game with Diarmuid O'Sullivan as his number 14, signalling that while O'Sullivan might not be his full forward in the summer, he's an option and McCarthy is in the business of finding options.

Options and fresh ideas. In 2005 Cork were only the second team of the last 10 years and the only All Ireland winning side of the last 25 not to give any player their first championship start all summer. They pulled it off that year and nearly did again last year but Kilkenny showed them the value in renewal and reinvention. Now, so is McCarthy.

O'Sullivan's redeployment is merely the most pronounced sign of change. For the previous two years, Cork convened to the Maryborough House for every home league or championship match; this year, the Rochestown Park and Jury's Hotel have already been gathering points before challenge and league matches. More players have been instructed to lift more weights in the gym, and pull more along the ground and in the air.

No one is sacred either.

When McCarthy mentioned in recent interviews about his huge respect for this group of players and what they've achieved on and off the field, Donal �g Cusack would have been to the foremost of his mind, yet already McCarthy has made clear even Cusack can push the parameters of goalkeeping and hurling only so far.

In last month's Waterford Crystal semi-final in Dungarvan, the home side had two shots that were going wide which Cusack kept in play to try to set up immediate counter-attacks.

Both puckouts resulted in Waterford scores, something McCarthy pointed out to the player after the game and again the following week by playing Martin Coleman in goal for the Waterford Crystal final against Tipperary.

Cusack was as much dropped as rested for that game and while it was a stance McCarthy would have hardly laboured in June, it's one even Donal O'Grady might have shied from in February. It is the selection of Cusack's clubmate at full forward though which has garnered most interest by and beyond Leeside. If Brian Lohan was the last archetypal full back of the last century, then O'Sullivan has been the first of this one (after selecting Noel Hickey at full back on his otherwise impeccable Team of the Decade last Sunday, E McEvoy of this parish promptly received the text message: "In five years' time no one outside of Kilkenny will remember Hickey. In 50 they'll remember the Rock").

He's hurled in previous leagues at wing back and even midfield (a spot which, at the turn of the decade, he described as his dream position for Cork), but never before in the forwards. It's 10 years now on since he made his debut in the only line of the field he's played in the championship, it has seemed a rather late, curious, bordering on novel, development.

It's certainly a telling one.

It underlines that Cork have many more ready-made replacements in the backline than they do in the forwards, reaffirms McCarthy's preference for the more direct style of game and indicates that he appreciates Cork will have to replace Brian Corcoran the leader as much as Brian Corcoran the full forward. O'Sullivan isn't just a potential ball winner and fulcrum for the attack but a leader for it.

In Cork, there'd be a slight fear it could all backfire. In previous leagues Cork could afford to play him out the field as he eased himself into the new season, but now the number of games to find a replacement for Corcoran is finite and precious. Unless McCarthy and his selectors are serious about playing him at 14 for the summer, then he shouldn't be there for the spring.

The player himself expressed a similar sentiment to the selectors and was assured that their intentions were serious and that he'd be given time there. Come the summer they want to have two options for every position. If the spring goes well, he could be their first option at full forward. It's an experiment alright, but not an excursion.

For now it makes sense. If Cian O'Connor and Killian Cronin are going to provide cover at full back in the summer, then management must provide them with games in the spring. Bishopstown's Pa Cronin has the hand and build to play at 14 but at this moment it's best to ease him into the side in his more familiar environment of the halfforward line rather than immediately burdening him with the load of replacing an institution like Corcoran.

Neil Ronan has thrived any time he's had to slot in for Corcoran and would relish inheriting as big a jersey as 14, but right now management have calculated he's best getting an extensive run in the team and having a target man like O'Sullivan to play off. If O'Sullivan doesn't work out, Ronan can always move in to the edge of the square. If it does, Ronan can stay in the corner, and O'Sullivan, where he is. Because it might just work.

O'Sullivan's back-to-front conversion has prompted comparisons with Corcoran and Ray Cummins and Brian Whelahan but the most recent precedent is Frank Lohan and the most obvious, Paul Shelly.

Like O'Sullivan, Shelley had played all his championship hurling at either full or corner back before a new manager, Nicky English, tried him out at full forward. Shelley's barnstorming style triggered Tipperary into winning the league and the following summer, eclipsing the behemoth that was Clare. Shelley would ultimately come unstuck, running into O'Sullivan in the 2000 Munster final and subsequently losing the kind of battle with his weight which O'Sullivan has repeatedly fought but always won, yet his stint at 14 helped transform Tipp into contenders, if not quite champions.

O'Sullivan can bring Cork what Shelley brought to Tipp - heft, guile, and hurling. At full back, he altered his game to the point of nearly preferring to lay off a hand-pass to a colleague than launch the kind of scud missile which once seemed his entire raison d'etre. His ability to spot and feed teammates at centre forward last year was a key factor in Cloyne reaching another county final last autumn, and a fortnight ago against Offaly set up four scores for others to go with his point.

It's also worth remembering, he's played full forward for Cork before - with the footballers in 2002. In that year's league he took Paddy Christie for two points when Christie was in his prime, and would have been a regular championship starter only for Colin Corkery being in his way. He's scored two goals in his four competitive games so far and while his back-togoal moves and over-theshoulder shots might never be as refined as those of Corcoran's or even his own with the bigger ball, it's hard to think of a full back who'll stop him if he gets a run on goal.

The trick will be to know when to call it off or if it has succeeded. The end of the round-robin section of the league is the likely review date. While Cork are in the midst of their third-longest ever streak without winning a league, last year was the first time in five years they didn't make the last six of the competition. McCarthy is determined to make this year's quarter-finals at least, and it is then that he will start picking his likely championship 15. If Ronan or Cronin is to be his full forward, then they'll have to be playing there by April, and if O'Sullivan is to be his championship full back, he'll need games to reacclimatise himself to his old haunt.

Today in Walsh Park he familiarises himself with an old enemy. In last year's corresponding game in P�irc U� Rinn, O'Sullivan shouldered Paul Flynn after Flynn had a 21-yard free blocked, only for John Mullane to tauntingly bump O'Sullivan to the ground when O'Sullivan missed one himself in the closing minutes of Waterford's win.

O'Sullivan returned the compliment last August in Croke Park. Since Gerald McCarthy as Waterford manager watched O'Sullivan lift Cork's last league title in 1998, there's never been more than six points between the sides in their 14 competitive headto-heads. Expect another close one today, and with O'Sullivan bustling around the square, plenty more contact too.