WHEN Bermuda Football Association embark on their next shopping trip, they might want to pick up a new drawing board.

It appears the one currently in use has been revisited so many times, it's beginning to fall apart.

Last weekend's dismal failure in the opening round of the Digicel Cup sent out a clear message that it's time to start all over again.

Victory over Trinidad in their own backyard in a World Cup qualifier only to be eliminated in the second leg at the National Sports Centre, prompted suggestions that Bermuda's national team were on the right road to becoming a force in Caribbean football.

Jamaica, Cuba and Trinidad must have been laughing their socks off.

The 'Gombey Warriors' as they like to be known – they're now in danger of being labelled the 'Gombey Wombles' – went into the Digicel competition as clear favourites to top the round-robin group and comfortably advance to the next round.

Instead, they finished third out of four, smashed by Antigua 4-0 and were held to a goalless draw by Caribbean 'powerhouse' Cayman Islands. In between they managed to stick seven goals by St. Martin, but that's hardly a result to brag about given their opponents do not even have a world ranking.

After the Antigua disaster, we heard the same old excuses – the players were tired, they've had a long season, some had to play for the national team, the Hogges and their club. With training, work, wives and girlfriends, it was all too much.

Oh dear!

But this isn't the Premier League, Serie A or Bundesliga.

If players are required to play two or three matches a week, so what?

With most aged between 17 and 27, they're supposed to be in their prime, enjoying every moment on the pitch.

If they can't handle that schedule, they're clearly not fit enough.

At the Beijing Olympics, almost all of the athletes had to make enormous sacifices just in order to earn a spot on their national team, let alone contend for a medal.

In just about every sport, fitness was the key word.

Yet here in Bermuda, when everything falls apart it's the governing bodies, Bermuda Football Association and Bermuda Cricket Board and their top executives and coaches, who take the flak.

No doubt sometimes they deserve it, but on many occasions it's the players who should shoulder the blame.

When things don't go as planned, they trot out the same old excuses.

And fatigue is a common theme.

Yet if some of them gave up the 'burgers and milk shakes, stopped partying and got a good night's sleep, they might find their performances would dramatically improve.

Too many of them seem to be able 'to talk the talk, but not walk the walk.'

Coaches Derek Broadley and Richard Todd revealed last week that prior to the trip to the Caymans between only six and eight players had been turning up for training, for a variety of reasons.

If that was the case, it's hardly fair to blame the BFA for what transpired on the field.

The problem in Bermuda for so many years is that players in our national sports believe talent alone is enough to survive, even succeed.

Hopefully, some of our 35-hour-a-month politicians who took exception to comments in this column regarding the fact that nobody turned up at the airport to greet an unsuccessful national cricket team earlier this year, will agree that there was also no need this week for one of the Gazette's photographers to make the journey east to greet the footballers.

When a football team touting itself as one of the most promising in the CONCACAF region gets bundled out of a four-nation tournament involving Cayman, Antigua and St. Martin, there's not a great deal to celebrate.

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IF Kris Frick thinks he's so good that Bermuda's coaches can't afford to leave him out of their starting line-up, he might want to test his talents elsewhere.

Perhaps Man United, Arsenal or Liverpool might be interested.

But then again those clubs probably still believe that football is a team sport.

Seems neither teenager Frick nor his father understand that concept.

That BFA handed out such severe punishment following the player's antics in Cayman shouldn't surprise anyone.

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HISTORICALLY, the Eastern Counties Cup final has been regarded second only to Cup Match as the highlight of the Island's cricket season.

But the hundreds who turned up at Lords last Saturday must have wondered whether they'd gone to the wrong game on the wrong day.

The standard of batting was appalling – barely 240 runs between the two teams.

As one radio commentator put it, there was nobody prepared to stand up and be counted.

Apart from a half-century from opener Chris Douglas, batsmen threw away wickets as if they were swatting flies.

With so many players a part of the national squad, it should have been an entertaining contest worthy of its reputation of showcasing the best of Bermuda cricket.

No wonder Cleveland coach Clay Smith was almost in tears when it came to a premature end.

- ADRIAN ROBSON