premier rugby-playing nation in the region.

That is the opinion of Mark Hewitt, development officer for the West Indies Rugby Football Union.

Hewitt, based in Barbados, has been on the Island instructing players from Bermuda's four clubs, conducting coaching courses and meeting officials from the BRFU.

Citing the Island as the best organised in the Caribbean region, he said it could not afford to sit back and needed to encourage more youngsters to take up the game if it was to develop further.

"The level of rugby here at a senior level is probably one of the best in the Caribbean,'' he said. "However, the junior level needs a lot of work on it to encourage people to play. That would mean getting into the schools and encouraging them to participate and with each club having their own youth team.'' Hewitt said the make-up of sides throughout the rest of Caribbean was on the whole local, whereas in Bermuda there were a lot expatriates involved.

"Bermuda needs a bigger youth set-up, otherwise they (the other Caribbean nations) will catch up and overtake. But they are a fair way off at the moment,'' he said.

Hewitt said there was a need for players leaving the game to consider putting something back into the sport, be it in terms of coaching or promoting rugby in schools.

He suggested next month's World Rugby Classic, featuring players from across the world, should be used as a tool to further enhance the standing of the game on the Island with some of the top names passing on their skills to the Island's youth.

Dennis Dwyer, president of the BRFU, said steps had been taken over the past couple of years to address the youth situation.

Grant Tompkins, the union's rugby development officer, had made inroads with schools in the past couple of years and it was beginning to bear fruit.

"The whole essence of the game is schoolboys,'' Dwyer said. "You really have to start with the young and have a very structured programme from lads of eight and nine right the way through to the open age.

"What we have found in Bermuda is you can keep it going for so long and then a lot of these kids move off to universities or colleges abroad and you have this big gap between the 15 and 18 or 19-year-olds.'' While Bermuda was dominant in terms of Caribbean rugby, the emphasis was now shifting towards the West Indies, with the likes of Venezuela and the Dominican Republic being embraced.

"My personal view is that some of the nations are now catching up and we can't sit back on our laurels,'' Dwyer said. "We have to continue to develop and get people in like Mark (Hewitt) to assist us and use whatever facilities we can to maintain our ability to be the best in the West Indies -- because if we don't we soon won't be.'' Towards the end of the month, five of the Island's top players will be part of a West Indies Select side who will accompany Hewitt to England for a five-game tour.

Bobby Hurdle, John Cassidy, Tom and Rob Steinhoff and Josh McGavern will play against forces' sides plus county team Hampshire and a development side from Hurdle's former club Worcester.