Whether or not the national cricket team should go full-time will be top of the agenda when Sports Minister Dale Butler meets with the Bermuda Cricket Board next week.

At the monthly meeting between the Ministry and the BCB ? part of the accountability for the $11 million Government injection ? Butler is going to be talking again about the need for professional players in the wake of Friday?s humiliation against Jamaica.

?It was a painful lesson for us,? said Butler, who watched the game even though he was unable to travel with the team.

?But it was a necessary early wake-up call.

?These were very good players, the bowling was superb and any player in the world would have struggled to deal with it.

?We will learn a lot from this and now we need to move on.?

Although Butler was keen to point out that it would not be the Ministry that would make the decision to make the players full-time, he said his department were ready to do what they had to do to assist the BCB.

?I get a lot of calls about the cricket and about nine out of ten of those from members of the public are about the need for us to make the players full-time,? said the Minister, an energetic supporter of the national team.

?But it is not our decision to make, but we will be meeting with the Board to talk about it again and see what they believe the need is and then myself and the Premier and this department will do what we can to help.

?If they feel that is the best way forward then we will do what we can.

?We are competing against professionals so we will do whatever is necessary to help our team.?

Coach Gus Logie spoke vociferously before and after the Stanford tournament ? in which his side were beaten by nine wickets by a Jamaican side containing eight Test players ? about the need for him to have better access to his players to help them improve.

He has already said that their inability to train together as a team regularly was hampering their development ? and Logie would be very keen to see the players full-time.

Butler was quick to chastise those who spent the weekend criticising the national programme, the coach and the players at various grounds across the Island.

?Once again I urge Bermuda to get behind their team,? he continued passionately.

?When a child falls you don?t spank it, you help it up. We need to rally behind the team, not criticise them. And to those people who say the $11 million is a waste of money, would you rather we qualified for the World Cup and then just pulled out?

?You need to spend money to help the sport grow, you see it all around the world. If you don?t try and improve then the Bermuda high jump record would still be three feet. You have to expose our athletes to the international arena to see what the challenges are.

?The cricket team are doing that and are learning from it. We need to invest in them as a Government and as a people and then they will do us proud.?