RUGBY players and officials plan to give the sport a big boost when two select teams travel to New England at the beginning of next month for matches which will help the national team prepare for a visit from the Cayman Islands during the World Rugby Classic.

And that game against the Caymans will be the forerunner to the qualifying matches which begin next year for the 2007 World Cup.

The chairman of the Bermuda Rugby Football Union, Dave Worsfold, said this week: "We will be sending a President's XV and a Vice President's XV to New England. The President's XV is close to being the national team although it will be open to a few more people from the Vice President's team and a few who cannot make the trip."

On Friday, October 3, both squads will travel to Boston for the two warm-up games. Both teams will play on Sunday, October 5 with the Vice President's Select taking on New England B; and the President's Select going up against New England A. These two games will act as preparation for the two matches during the World Rugby Classic.

Worsfold said: "A few of the lads here in Bermuda have played against some of the New England players and they said the level should be quite good. The players we will be facing will be from the numerous clubs around New England. We are obviously looking for some good opposition to get us ready for the game against the Cayman Islands and further on next year from those countries we will face in the qualifiers for the 2007 World Cup."

During the World Rugby Classic most of the Vice President's Select squad will form a team that will face a team from Atlanta called the Atlanta Renegades on Saturday, October 11 at 1 p.m. as a curtain raiser for the Classic. Most of the President's Select squad will form the national team that will face off against the Cayman Islands on Saturday, October 18 at 4 p.m. as the first match of the final day of the Classic. And this match marks the first international match for the national team on local soil (other than participation in the Classic) in over five years.

Bermuda's new national team coach, Alvin Harvey, said he is looking forward to the New England matches as well as those matches against the Atlanta Renegades and the Cayman Islands. "We have to find out where we are - we must identify our weaknesses especially in time for the qualifiers for the World Cup and the only way you can do that is play matches - especially matches against fairly good opposition."

While Harvey said this is his first stint at coaching the national team (he has previously been Bermuda's captain) he just may get the chance to "dust my boots off for a game or so". He added: "But I am really concentrating on coaching - that is what I am here for. We started training hard about a month ago and it has been going well. And we have some new and younger faces in the squad which is good to see. I hope to see the younger guys get a chance to show what they can do. The Boston games are a warm-up for the Caymans and the Cayman game is a warm-up for the World Cup qualifying matches. We have to find out what we need to work on for next year's campaign."

And Harvey, as well as BRFU chairman Worsfold, both agreed that the sport has to also concentrate on finding young Bermudians. Harvey said: "Face it, the future of our sport here is in young Bermudians - we really want to make a good effort to attract them to rugby before they get grabbed by other sports. Last year we had a number of young players from Sandys and Saltus come out and train and then they went on a two-game tour to Washington DC which was successful. We want to do more of that so that in the years to come they can hopefully be playing for Bermuda. I know that Keith Hodgkins from Warwick Academy has a very good programme going now."

Worsfold added: "Keith's boys recently came back from a two-game tour to Philadelphia and won both games. We are trying to give rugby a boost by getting some young players involved. We want to expand on the youth programme we had last year. Since they do not play rugby, or for that matter many sports in school these days, we have Chris Nailer (from Sandys) as head of our Youth Development and he has done a great job. Now we want to get all the four clubs in Bermuda to adopt a school and have their own youth devlopment officer in charge of those kids. If we can get a team from each of the four schools playing then that will be great for the future of rugby in Bermuda and also the national team in years to come."

Right now the BRFU is trying to find a regular home for rugby.

Worsfold said: "The national team rotates training on Tuesday at the various club facilities and then we also use Whitney on Sundays.

"We are hoping to use the National Sports Centre's north field for regular games but right now we are talking to Government about it - and also the field suffered some damage from Hurricane Fabian. But we remain hopeful.

"We will be using BAA this Saturday to kick the season off with a 10-a-side competition starting at 3 p.m. Then we go away for the New England tour and after that we will have the two matches during the World Rugby Classic. Then it is back to BAA for a mini Four Nations tournament where the players will play for their countries - not clubs. It ties in nicely with the World Rugby Cup which will be going on at the same time so we will get a bit of country pride in there."