Bermuda's World Cup qualifying bid recieved a welcomed shot in the arm yesterday with confirmation North Village pair Keith Jennings and Ralph Bean jr have rejoined the senior national team.

Both players had shown interest in putting an end to their self-imposed exiles prior to the senior national team's five-day training camp in England earlier this month.

And their decision could not have been more timely with Bermuda set to face Barbados early next month at the National Sports Centre (NSC) in two friendly matches just days before taking on regional powerhouses Trinidad and Tobago in the first leg of a World Cup qualifier in Trinidad.

Also retgurning to the national team setup is PHC and Bermuda Hogges player Johnny Ball while Devonshire Cougars' promising mid-fielder Randy Robinson has also been added to the squad.

Tucker quit the post last weekend for "personal reasons" and has now been succeeded by Somerset Eagles player/coach Kenny Thompson who described Bean and Jennings as valuable assets.

"Both players are very technical and they have shown over the past few seasons they are impact players," he said.

"I believe they have the ingredients to assist the national team in quality performances," added Thompson, who hinted that other players could possibly come onboard in the near future should they meet the criteria.

"We are always on the lookout for impact players but what we have to be mindful about is that we cannot overload the training squad.

"It must be an amount of players that are manageable in terms of not having too many players at a training session," he said.

"That makes it too difficult to keep everyone involved sufficiently to meet our objectives.

"Having said that, I believe the national team is always a situation in which the players, based on their performances, will determine who can remain.

And maybe there are some other players on the outside who are good enough to replace some players who aren't performing well.

"It's a situation whereby anyone who wants to play in the national team should be motivated to seize an opportunity whenever it presents itself and that involves playing well domestically as well as being in the right physical and mental shape.

"What we must create is a situation where there is competition for places and that the players know they have to perform well in order to keep their place because there are players on the outside that can replace them.

"And this is the sort of professional environment that players at the very top level have to deal with day in, day out."