IT'S been a tough few weeks for Bermuda's two national sports.

Well 'tough' is an explanation most would consider overly generous.

In the minds of many, it's been a total disaster.

Has cricket and football really plummeted to new depths?

When the senior national soccer team, with home advantage, can only scrape out a draw against Cayman Islands in a World Cup qualifier, when the senior national cricket team embarrass themselves by posting the lowest score ever in the Stanford 20/20 tournament, and when our 'players of the future', the Under-19s, suffer a 188-run mauling at the hands of Nepal . . . tiny Nepal, where the national sport is mountain climbing, and where most of the population wouldn't know the difference between a cricket ball and a ping-pong ball . . . well, the answer is probably yes.

Yet, all we hear from the players, the coaches, the administrators, the governing bodies are the same old, tiresome excuses.

In both cricket and football, it's been the same story offered to the sporting public for as long as we can remember.

Not enough money, poor preparation, poor facilities, injuries . . . we've heard 'em all.

Money? Well, they can't use that one any more.

What would Cayman, Nepal and countries such as Montseratt and US Virgin Islands, who put up respectable performances at the Stanford tournament, give for the millions that the Bermuda Government have invested in our two sports.

Their players and coaches would have been drooling over such a windfall.

As for the other excuses, they too are no longer acceptable.

Last Sunday's drubbing at the hands of Stanford champions Guyana was perhaps the worst performance by a Bermuda national team in living memory.

With a couple of exceptions - Hemp and Leverock - there wasn't an ounce of fighting spirit, and what made it worse, the match was watched on TV by millions of viewers throughout the Caribbean and elsewhere. Was this really the same Bermuda team that made cricket history by becoming the smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup?

Actually, it wasn't. There were names in the line-up that even our most avid cricket fans didn't recognise.

And who's to blame for that? Bermuda Cricket Board knew the dates for this tournament a year ago and were advised that Guyana were our first round opposition several months in advance.

How did we prepare? Well, the answer to that is quite clear, we didn't. And it showed.

As Clay Smith points out in his column this week (this page), the players can't shoulder all of the blame.

But certainly the Board owe us an explanation. Yet they've remained silent. Questions by the media are these days referred to the BCB website which is about as impressive as the teams' performances.

One excuse offered after Sunday's humiliation was that the country's best young players were unavailable as they were in Malaysia preparing for this month's Under-19 World Cup.

But, of course, that one went out of the window a day later when the youngsters were given a lesson by that cricketing powerhouse Nepal.

Again, the excuses still kept coming.

ZBM sports reporter Ian Rawlins tried to tell his viewers that the players were tired and had not yet acclimatised after a long flight before the match.

Oh dear, the Nepal teenagers seemed to have adjusted quite well.

If cricket's causing so much concern, then our other national sport isn't faring much better.

Once more, the players have to be held accountable for their dismal performance against Cayman. At least they have the chance to make amends in next month's away leg.

But if they lose that one, both new coach Keith Tucker and the governing body will come under increasing pressure, and rightly so.

It will be clear that Tucker isn't the right man for the job, and BFA chairman Larry Mussenden, who last week fired technical committee chairman Mark Trott - although some farcically tried to explain the sacking as part of a 'cabinet shuffle' - then he'll seriously have to review his own lofty position.

Government, who have made such a hefty investment of taxpayers' money in these two sports, have had little to say on the matter.

Premier Ewart Brown apparently met with BCB president Reggie Pearman this week and later issued a statement advising that his Government remained "highly interested" in the development of cricket.

"We take the investment of taxpayer dollars very seriously," he said.

That must have given our readers a good laugh. Tell us another one, Mr. Premier.

If Government were really serious about the development of our national sport, wouldn't it have been better to invite the media to that meeting this week so that the public could have been told what was really discussed between the two parties and what was being done to get us out of this mess.

Privately, new sports minister El James, a very good cricketer and footballer in days gone by, must be seething.

But it was his Government who officially declared football and soccer our national sports.

They now have the right to withdraw that honour and decide whether their cash could be put to better use.

Over the years, names such as boxer Clarence Hill, footballers Clyde Best, Shaun Goater, Kyle Lightbourne and Khano Smith, high jumper Clarence Saunders, triple jumper Brian Wellman, sailors Peter Bromby and Paula Lewin, and more recently golfer Michael Sims and triathlete Flora Duffy, have earned Bermuda a reputation for continually producing world-class athletes.

But it's always been the individuals who have impressed.

Given our size, it's difficult to imagine any team reaching the same heights.

But that said, they should be able to compete on a regional basis. The results of the last two weeks show we can't.

And there can be no excuses!

- ADRIAN ROBSON