I've hardly had any opportunities to watch the national team in action since I returned home, so I was really looking forward to Tuesday night and the game between Bermuda and the New England Revolution.

It was always going to be difficult against a professional team like the Revs and in all honesty, I thought the guys showed a lot of fighting spirit despite the 3-1 defeat.

As I was expecting Kenny Thompson to do in his position as interim manager, he strung five across midfield. As a result we were solid and compact and made it very difficult for New England to play through us.

The problem with this system though is that while we defended reasonably at times, particularly in the second half, we saw very little in the way of attacking football.

I personally would like to have seen us being a little bit more adventurous going forward in what was after all a practice game.

Quite a few of the players ? but by no means all ? who suited up for the national team on Tuesday night are looking to be part of the Bermuda Hogges, so obviously I was keeping a very close eye on things and assessing what the various players on display might have to offer us.

There are two major issues which are concerning me at the moment ? issues Kyle Lightbourne, Paul Scope and myself will have to deal with immediately once we select the Hogges squad.

The first is fitness. Paul Mariner, the Revs' assistant coach, said afterwards that he thought there were some Bermuda players out there with some good talent, but that fitness had been the main difference between the two sides.

It was no accident that we became quite stretched in the last 15 minutes of the game and conceded the two goals. Having been working hard defensively for three quarters of the game, you could see that a lot of the players were running out of gas in the latter stages.

What has got to be remembered here is that the Revolution players are currently in pre-season training and nowhere near their peak fitness. The Bermuda boys, by contrast, are coming to the end of their season and have been playing a lot of club football ? not to mention the national team's extended involvement in the Digicel Cup.

They've had plenty of games and probably should be fitter than they are.

I know they were playing against high-quality professionals who play football for a living, but the Hogges are going to be competing in the USL ? which is a professional league ? and such, we simply won't be able to get away with the fitness levels that are sufficient in local club football.

When we first get the squad together, there will be a lot of physical work from the outset. Even I, as a former professional, admit that I hated fitness work. Pre-season was my least favourite time of the year simply because it was always an incredibly hard slog to get yourself up to the level you needed to be.

But given that Kyle and I are both likely to play some part in the USL season, both of us will be there doing everything that will be required of the other players ? in terms of stamina training as well as the weights programme that every player will have.

The second area of concern I had from Tuesday night's game was in regards to some of the decision-making on the field.

Both in defence and attack, there were quite a few times when I felt players were taking the wrong options ? whether it was taking two touches when it should have been one, passing the ball square when it should have been forward.

As former pros, these are the kind of little things that Kyle and myself really pick up on and usually when a player is making these basic misjudgements ? which can have a significant impact over the course of 90 minutes ? it's usually a product of inexperience or somebody not being aware of their specific role within whatever system is being employed.

This is something we hope to make sure doesn't happen with the Hogges, and all the coaches will be spending a lot of time talking with the players to make sure they understand exactly how we want them to play.

That aside, I'm looking forward once again to watching them take on the LA Galaxy tonight. Ideally I'd like to see the interim manager play two up front and try to create more going forward ? though I have a feeling that given the circumstances and the quality of the opposition, it could well be more of the same.