Bermuda's coach and vice-captain both remain confident of success at next month's ICC Trophy tournament despite the recent series loss to visiting MCC.

Winston Reid and Clay Smith admitted that the side had played poorly over the course of the four-game series in losing all four matches, but they were optimistic that the deficiencies highlighted in their play would be rectified prior to departure for Canada.

"In these games we've made mistakes, now we have to go back and correct those mistakes, and once we've done that I can only see us going from strength to strength,'' said Reid, who is working with the team along with manager Clevie Wade. "These games were primarily to find out where we were and how we reacted and performed together as a team.

"People figure that we should have won all four games, which is fine, but once we have defined our mistakes, we can go back to the drawing board and start working towards making corrections for Canada.

"The wickets in Canada are different, the balls play differently and we will play differently, and I'm convinced that we will qualify.'' Meanwhile, Smith, who is viewed by many as the man to lead Bermuda to the 2003 World Cup in South Africa if they do manage to qualify -- the top three countries earn berths in the event involving all countries holding One-Day International status -- concurred with his coach.

He noted that losing could be contagious and it was up to the batsmen, in particular, to regain form and confidence. Of the top order, only Albert Steede and Smith averaged double figures, with Ricky Hill, Janeiro Tucker, Kwame Tucker and captain Charlie Marshall all enduring miserable series with the willow.

"We can still do well at ICC, we just have to commit ourselves, put in the work over the next month,'' said Smith, who posted the best score against the tourists, 106 during the first match at Somerset. "I don't think as a team we played anywhere near the level of our capabilities, which goes to show that we have a lot of hard work to do over the next month.

"Basically our preparation hasn't been the best and it's in the players' hands to prepare themselves to the best of their ability between now and June so that we can get over there and be successful.

"When you lose four on the trot, losing can become a habit, which is why it was important with (Sunday's) game that we got a victory to at least have something positive to leave on. Right now the guys are down in their spirits and whatever, but it'll be up to each of us to get back into our league cricket and regain form.

"Some of our top players have lost a bit of form over the last week or two.

Over the next month they'll have to put in a lot of hard work and get back on track.'' Reid added that he had learned a great deal from MCC and hoped the team would also have learned -- things such as field settings and the importance of building partnerships while batting.

Much criticism was directed at the local team's inability to set fields to adequately restrict MCC, while it seemed Bermuda's only route to scoring runs was to go over the top and risk being caught, rather than through gaps.

"Surely we have learned something from MCC,'' he said. "I have learned a tremendous amount from these guys.

"From the first game I have learned some things, where guys set particular fields and our batsmen played into the areas that these guys wanted us to play, that was a tremendous problem for us.

Coach Reid still confident From Page 21 "We had them at 60 for six and two batsmen came in, assessed the situation, batted for about 10 overs to get on top of the bowling without scoring many runs, but after that switched into another gear and started scoring freely and as a result one batsman got 94 runs. I thought that was great, as opposed to going out there at 60 for six and just saying `Hey, it's all over'. I hope that's something we can pass on to our players.''