Richard Tardits apart from the rest of his team-mates.

The last person you would expect to find working out with the Eagles -- aka Team USA -- is someone who spent his youth in the south of France, a few miles from the Spanish border.

Tardits is obviously not your average rugby player.

Joining 22 other Eagles yesterday for the first of two spirited and intense workouts less than a day after arriving in Bermuda, Tardits was rarely without a smile as he ran, tackled and blocked his way around the Police Recreation pitch during a practice which lasted just shy of two hours.

The Eagles have landed -- and the thud the Bermuda national team heard is probably the singlemindedness which the US players are displaying as they approach Saturday's crucial World Cup qualifier at National Sports Club (3 p.m.).

Just ask vice-captain Sean Field and guest coach Allan Edmunds, who were spying from a nearby hilltop.

With all the trappings of an NFL training camp, the Eagles yesterday embarked on their exhuberant preparations, mapping out a specific route to Saturday with nothing else but rugby on the itinerary. There will be no visits to the beach or the aquarium for this group.

And a day prior to Saturday's match, the Eagles will run through a dress rehearsal of what they anticipate will happen on the day of the big match.

"Some people say that if they are as organised on the pitch as they are off it they would win the World Cup,'' said one bystander during yesterday's practice.

Tardits, a one-time defensive lineman with the Phoenix Cardinals and New England Patriots of the National Football League (1989-92), has never been a bystander to the unrelenting grind of training camps, or life for that matter.

But at least he got to go to Fanueil Hall or the jazz clubs in Cambridge once in a while when he played for the Patriots.

The Eagles, however, will stick close to their Elbow Beach nest and are unlikely to stray beyond the cosy confines of the pitches where they will spend almost four hours each day training. And the lights will go out early -- curfew is at 11 p.m. beginning tomorrow night.

"No, we won't be checking on them,'' said Eagles manager Ed Schram yesterday.

"They know what they have to do.'' What they have to do is defeat Bermuda if they hope to advance to the next year's World Cup in South Africa. The team is coming off a string of losses, including a 26-22 defeat against Australia in November at their home base in Riverside, California.

"It feels very good,'' said Tardits yesterday of the team's first workout, not the three consecutive losses suffered against Australia and Canada.

"I think all the guys missed it because we had a really good camp in California six months ago. We felt great together. I think we have great chemistry. You saw the practice, there was a lot of laughing, we enjoyed being with each other.'' Tardits, 28, has been playing rugby for half of his life, all of it with his joie de vivre , but grew to love American football while attending the University of Georgia. He was a fifth round draft choice of the Phoenix Cardinals in 1989 and later signed with the Patriots as a free agent.

"The reason I played football was because I had no money to go to school and I had to find a way to take classes. They didn't have rugby scholarships at Georgia, but they did for football. Actually I figured rugby would be a lot like football.'' Tardits, however, had trouble cracking the Phoenix line-up his first season and spent much of that time on the developmental squad. He felt he finally arrived in the bright lights of the NFL when "I sacked (LA Rams) quarterback Jim Everett. I proved to myself what I could do.'' He played in two games for the Patriots the following season, mostly on special teams, before suting up for all 16 of the team's games in 1991. An injury in 1992 after nine games cut short his season -- and career.

"I think I may be the NFL player with the worst record in the league because we were 2-14 when I was at Phoenix and 1-15, 6-10 and 2-14 the three years I was with the Patriots,'' he said.

The NFL dream continues to linger, and he remains determined to land a job next season with the San Diego Chargers or Denver Broncos.

"Football was very different from rugby,'' he added. "It was very military oriented. You put yourself on the line every day at every practice and that's something I wasn't really used to, especially after playing for the French junior rugby team in France. I had a hard time dealing with that.'' Tardits had no trouble dealing with being a part of France's bobsled team at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, proving once again the kind of versatile athlete he is. But an injury suffered while preparing for the 1994 Games prevented him from travelling to Norway.

"I couldn't do anything for two-and-a-half months,'' he said. "The bobsled flipped and I broke a shoulder, tore up my knee and burned my other shoulder.

It took me a while to get back, but I'll be ready for Japan in 1998.'' And for Saturday's game against Bermuda.

Then there is also the upcoming rugby season as a member of the Mystic River club in Boston.

"I guess I'm just determined,'' the number eight said. "Life is very short and you've got to make the best of the opportunities that come your way. It's like this Saturday. This is a great opportunity for us to go forward and keep playing together. We talked about it this morning. This game is do or die. We understand their are no easy games.'' Yesterday's workouts were under the command of veteran assistant coach Dan Porter, because head coach Jack Clark arrived late because his university team played last weekend.

There were 23 US players working out yesterday, with two of the players not officially on the squad. Four players are fighting for two openings with the final team being announced by Thursday morning.

"Our goal is to get a little better every day in practice,'' said Porter.

"We're really young. I'll bet 13 or 14 guys have fewer than two caps, so most of these players are just emerging on the international scene.'' Apart from two-a-day workouts, the team will be meeting each day at their hotel where they will "rely on a chalkboard...very low-tech stuff,'' added Porter.

RICHARD TARDITS -- US player was a member of the New England Patriots and Phoenix Cardinals in the NFL.

DAN PORTER -- Eagle practice mission is to "get a little better every day.''