Bermuda should be at full strength going into their North American and Caribbean Rugby Association Championship game against Turks and Caicos Islands on Saturday.

A couple of niggling injuries to John Quigley and Tommy Edwards, the centres, aside, coach Roedolf van der Westhuizen has few concerns heading into the encounter.

Of the two, Quigley’s hamstring injury, which he picked up in Renegades’ Nicol Shield win over Police last weekend is the more serious. Edwards suffered a cut to his left hand in training which required three stitches, but the subsequent swelling has gone down and he declared himself fit last night.

Bermuda will have a final training session tonight at the National Sports Centre, after which Van der Westhuizen will name the 23-man squad for Saturday.

With the domestic season only just finishing, Bermuda have had limited opportunities to play together in the build-up to the game, something the coach said was both a positive and a negative.

“The positive side is that everybody is at their fittest, everybody is still very committed, and match fit, which is great,” Van der Westhuizen said.

“The negative side is we haven’t played together much. If it was a month of so after the end of the domestic season we probably would have got one or two practice matches in, and you can play together before you actually play a Test match.

“But, the bigger nations in world rugby do the same. I think what’s good with Bermuda is, we have four clubs and we play each other so many times that you know each other’s game whether you play together or not.”

With the likes of Pete Dunkerley, the captain, Paul Dobinson, Steven Husbands, and Tom Healy in the set-up, Bermuda have a strong group of seasoned players available. Van der Westhuizen is keen to add some young blood to the mix, but has so far found the next generation unwilling to commit to the senior team.

Mariners duo Rory Dublin, who Van der Westhuizen described as a “phenomenal” player, and Khamel Easton, the fly half, are a case in point. Both were asked to be involved, and in Dublin’s case did not even return the coach’s call.

“We’ve tried to get them involved, for one reason or another they have chosen not to, I don’t know why,” Van der Westhuizen said. “Not only Rory, who I would have loved to have had involved, but there are a couple of others I felt should be in the squad at least, guys like Khamel Easton. He’s probably not a good enough 10 at the moment to play international rugby, but given a full season of playing and working with the squad, would have been a good enough 10 to do it next year.

“It’s sad that he’s not been part of the set-up, and there are one or two other boys as well.”

n Bermuda’s game against TCI kicks off at 4pm at North Field, with gates opening at 12pm for matches involving boys and girls youth teams and the Bermuda women’s team.