Southend stars will get their first touch of a football today as they prepare to take on the national side tomorrow night.

The Championship team, a status achieved through a second successive promotion last year with Shaun Goater in their ranks, arrived on Tuesday night for a week-long pre-season tour.

Yesterday was an easy day for the party of 26, with just an hour of early evening training.

Although the original itinerary catered for two training sessions a day, the first day of their tour was a light one to give the players a chance to recover from the flight at the Grotto Bay Hotel.

?We let the boys just hang out today,? said Tilson, who on Tuesday revealed that the pre-season trip was ?90 percent about Shaun?.

?They were tired from the flight, so we skipped the morning training. I think a lot of the guys just hung around at the hotel and the hotel beach recovering.

?About 4 p.m. we ran over the Causeway down to Kindley Field Park and did some strides and some push ups and sit ups and then ran back.

?It was just something light to get them back into the swing of things and used to the heat.?

Today the team will train twice, once at 8 a.m. and again at 5 p.m., with Tilson introducing the ball for the first time. Again, for both sessions the team will run down to the training pitch.

It is also understood Southend have rented the training facility at the National Stadium North Field, for one hour tomorrow and two hours each for Sunday and Monday.

Despite the Tourism Department and the Bermuda Football Association helping arrange the tour ? although neither were present at the airport to greet the teams ? it is understood the visitors are still being charged to use the Stadium facilities, hence the limited use during their week-long trip.

The Southend side, who are currently in negotiations with potential new players back in Britain for their upcoming season, will take on Kyle Lightbourne?s young national team tomorrow night at 7.30 p.m.

Although Lightbourne ? who flies out to Germany on the day of the game ? will not risk any of his Under 20 World Cup qualifying team, tomorrow?s side is expected to have a younger look to it, aside from the 20 minutes in which Goater makes an appearance.

The recently-retired striker will also play 20 minutes for Southend in the match, which is expected to draw a large crowd keen to pay their respects to one of the Island?s most successful footballing sons.