Derek Broadley believes Bermuda's elimination from the Digicel Cup has signalled the end of his honeymoon period as technical director and admitted: "My real work starts now."

While the referee's final whistle against Cayman shattered Bermuda's lofty Gold Cup dreams, Broadley reckoned it officially kicked off the start of his Bermudian football revolution.

The straight-talking Londoner insisted he was "gutted" about the Gombey Warriors' premature exit, but suggested it could eventually prove to be a blessing in disguise.

Without the interference and distractions of intense international competition, the ex-Crystal Palace academy director will now be able to launch his ambitious three-year national team programme, which he will begin rolling out over the next few weeks.

"I'm gutted about us not qualifying. We were the best team in the group but the Antigua result killed us," Broadley said.

"But in some ways I'm a little relieved as I can start to roll out my plan for Bermudian football and see if we can change some of the things that have supposedly going wrong for years.

"My job was always going to start after the Digicel Cup. There was no way I was going to achieve my goals within the first five months of being in the job – everyone knew that.

"I've had a great insight over the last few months and I think I've acquired the knowledge of what's going right and what's going wrong. As I say, I'm very disappointed that we're out but also very excited that I can now get started."

Question marks have been raised over Bermuda's lack of preparation after it emerged just eight or nine players had been attending pre-tournament training sessions.

Fatigue, injury and work commitments robbed them of a raft of key players, which Broadley puts down to a lack of dialogue between Bermuda Football Association and Bermuda Hogges.

However, he stressed that he believed the Hogges had an important role to play in the development of the local game and would be looking to hold talks with their hierarchy over the coming months.

"I think we can't look at this event in isolation," he said. "We need to look at Bermuda football as a whole. I think Bermuda Hogges are an excellent thing for the Island, but there has to be more communication between the parties.

"Some of our players have been playing football continually for two years for their domestic clubs and with the Hogges – there has been no built-in rest.

"There's no point spending a lot of time and money on international events if we don't prepare for them. This has got to change. It's important every national team has a 12-month calendar including training, matches and rest. And just because we went out of this competition doesn't not mean the senior national programme comes to a halt."

See tomorrow's Royal Gazette for Broadley's thoughts on the full-time national coach's position, what style of football Bermuda should be playing and Kris Frick's international future.