Bermuda's national soccer captain is hoping referees call off their strike at the earliest opportunity so the Island can get back to the business of playing.

Devonshire Colts stopper Shannon Burgess said while he understood the reasons behind the Bermuda Referees Association's decision to withdraw their services, he didn't think such a "drastic'' step was necessary.

"It's unfortunate but I guess referees have a few things that they have requested that have not been implemented, so they feel that they need to go in that direction,'' he said. "The most drastic measure they can take is to suspend football -- I don't think that we have had that many incidents this season for us to say `OK, look no more football' but as I said there are other things behind the scenes that they have requested that they haven't got.'' Burgess, whose team are currently third in the Premier League, said the strike would hit players hard and might have a detrimental effect on their performances throughout the rest of the season.

"It's going to be rough on the players because now you are going to ask us to complete half of a league campaign in a couple of weeks in order to play the Dudley Eve competition,'' he said.

"So as far as a physical burden on the players is concerned it's unfortunate but if that's what they (the referees) have to do to get their demands in place, what can we say?'' Teams whose form was just picking up would be hit hardest by the action, Burgess said.

"The disruption of the season hurts a team if they are starting to gain momentum. They have pretty much got to start over from scratch,'' he said.

"Take the teams that didn't play in the Martonmere Cup final, they have already had a week or so off prior to that so they are looking at three weeks to a month before they play another game.'' Burgess said players were training without really knowing whether or not they were going to be playing at the weekend.

"It's difficult. Match fitness is obviously where you want to be at and it's hard to do that if you are just training and not getting games in because training exercises are not as competitiveas matches,'' he added.

The player, who as national captain is undoubtedly a role model for youngsters on the Island, acknowledged that team members had a responsibility to ensure that in the future matters didn't get to this stage by helping to maintain order on the pitch.

"Players can encourage their team-mates to be disciplined and encourage the spectators to try and have a little bit of respect for referees,'' he said.

"We all experience situations where we disagree with referees but a player will miss a penalty, a player will miss a breakaway or a goalkeeper will drop a ball -- everyone makes mistakes during the game, so you need to learn to accept it I guess.'' But Burgess felt far from getting worse, discipline was improving in the higher echelons of the game.

"In my opinion as far as senior football and the First Division is concerned, the players have got a lot better,'' he said. "There were certain circumstances that happened in the Martonmere Cup final where I didn't agree with some calls that were made but you learn to live with them.

"Players Island-wide have learned to pretty much accept that that's the referee's decision. It may get heated, they make a comment every once and while but you don't really see in Premier Division and First Division football players attacking referees. I think we have come forward quite a bit.

"We have to recognise that referees are human and we are not going to like everything but that's all in the game.'' Devonshire Colts match against league leaders PHC was one of four Premier matches called off last weekend.

However, no Premier games had been scheduled this weekend which had been left clear to accomodate a touring Canadian team who have since cancelled their visit.

Shannon Burgess: believes players in the Premier Division are more disciplined than in previous seasons.