The issue of relegation may be a foregone conclusion for St. David's -- but they don't see it that way.

The Premier Division's bottom club look certain to take the drop back into the First Division unless they can win at least half of their games in the second half of the season.

While their promotion partners PHC top the division, the Islanders have made little progress since coming up. Now they have a nine-point gap to close before they can even get off the bottom. But where there is a will there is a way, manager Kenny Bascome believes.

"We won't be going down without a fight, I can tell you that,'' Bascome vowed. "We had a meeting on Sunday after the game and I believe we can survive and most of them feel the same way. We'll have a renewed commitment when the season restarts.'' It wasn't easy for Bascome to pinpoint the team's main problem -- letting in goals. In nine league games, they have conceded 29 and scored four.

In fact the last time they lost by the odd goal was their opening match of the season when they went down 2-1 to Boulevard. Their biggest accomplishment in the first half of the season was drawing against Dandy Town with 10 men.

However, they followed that up with a 7-0 hammering against Wolves in the Friendship Trophy two days later.

"I think we have given away too many easy goals after we had created so many opportunities ourselves,'' said Bascome. "When I look at the Boulevard game in particular, we lost 2-1 but I felt we should have won the game 3-1. The only games I really feel we were outplayed were against Village and the Friendship game against Wolves. Other than that I felt we competed quite well.

"I'm committed because when I went over to St. David's I said that I was coming for three years.'' St. David's have never survived in the top flight based on their own performances. In their first year up in 1992-93 they were relegated but managed to stay up when Hotels withdrew from the league and left the First Division with an odd number of teams.

But Bascome could see a bright future for the club. "We have a young group of guys and they can be a force if they just stay together. We have a nice crop coming along in the under-19 programme and the key is to convince them to stay in their community.'' One player who may get restless at the end of the season is captain Chae Simmons -- Bascome's nephew -- who has probably been the team's best player so far. Simmons is a member of the Bermuda Under-23 team which left yesterday for a short tour of Florida and coaches from other Premier Division clubs are also taking note.

"He wanted to leave last year and I convinced him to stay,'' said Bascome.

"I understand he's becoming frustrated because he has ability. But I proved to him he could be chosen to represent Bermuda while playing in St. David's.''