performance against the University of South Florida on Saturday to play so well against Miami Fusion the next day.

If you don't match the other team for effort, then the tactics and systems you use really don't matter. Soccer is a war and when you go out onto the field, you go into battle.

But I am pleased to see how the Under-23s battled in Tampa on Saturday and how the seniors battled in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday.

Our intensity and commitment was there against the Fusion and that's really what we have been asking for from the players. We knew we couldn't afford to give anything away against the professionals and we didn't.

Fusion threw everything they had at us, but only scored the one goal. We defended pretty well and stifled them by stopping their full backs coming forward.

The tour has been fantastic and invaluable for us. Players learn from playing games, not from coaching. Games are the best teacher. And to have so many games in such a short time has been great.

They are all feeling tired and sore because they are not used to training and playing day after day. We are trying to get them conditioned in time for the World Cup and now we are getting there.

As I have said many times, players will learn from playing against better opposition and trying to imitate the things they do. And I have seen that happening on this tour. With some of the younger players, you can see it in their eyes, the things they have learned in the last couple of days.

Learning and getting fit has been the aim of the tour and although we ovbviously aim to win matches, results were not so important. The BVI match is when results will become important and we will be ready for that.

We've got five or six players to come in -- when Kentoine Jennings gets fit again and our four pros come back -- so being realistic we were not playing with anything like a full strength side in Florida.

The tour has helped some of our players to lose the bad habits they have picked up in our league at home. They have had to pick up the pace of their game and not dwell so long on the ball.

It is no good for our best players to prepare for international competition at home. We have to try and do things like this tour more often.

Our population is only 65,000 and we are playing against countries with populations of millions when we play teams like Canada. That is not an excuse, but if we want to be serious about competing at internaitonal level, we have to play overseas more often and try to get the squad together for longer.