In the wake of an early World Cup exit, former national coach Gary Darrell hopes, if nothing else, the senior programme doesn't slip into inactivity for a few years as it did after the 1992 campaign.

Changes appear inevitable in the national squad set-up with technical advisor Clyde Best expected to step down after Sunday's 1-1 draw with Antigua eliminated Bermuda from the qualifying competition.

But just what direction the programme will take remains to be seen.

"What we cannot afford to do -- like when we had the other good run -- is to take two or three years off to decide what we want to do,'' Darrell warned.

"We need to keep what we have as a base and not throw it out completely.'' Darrell was hailed as a hero after he guided Bermuda on a World Cup run which included wins over El Salvador and Haiti at home and Antigua away. But when that streak ended at the second round stage so too did Bermuda's involvement at international level.

"Even though it's been a disappointment, the national programme is up and running again,'' Darrell pointed out.

"You have the under-17s, under-19s, under-20s, under-23s, squads who have been together in the last 12 months. So let's keep it going while some decisions are being made.'' These days Darrell does radio commentary and was at the game on Sunday to see Bermuda score first and then Antigua reply with an all-important away goal that left Bermuda needing to score again to advance.

"I felt right up to the time they scored that we would get by, even with the pros missing,'' said Darrell.

But the former coach had remarked before the game that the atmosphere and enthusiasm surrounding this campaign fell short of what was experienced in 1992 when the team's early success was supported by the whole community.

"It didn't happen for us right away either, it was a snowball effect,'' Darrell remembered.

"It started with the Haitian game, then onto the Antigua game and by the time El Salvador came here we were experiencing something I had never seen before.

That was something the team earned and generated and had we gotten by Antigua on Sunday maybe the same thing could have happened.'' It would appear that either Antigua have improved in the last eight years or Bermuda have slipped a notch or two, for back in '92 Bermuda won 3-0 at the Antigua Recreation Ground before winning 2-1 at home.

"We had developed an attitude and camaraderie where those guys felt they could beat anybody they went on the field with,'' said Darrell of his '92 team.

"We knew going into the Haiti match -- and I couldn't ever remember Bermuda beating Haiti -- that that would be a real tough hurdle. But against Antigua there was never any doubt that we could beat them and that was the attitude the team displayed.

"But since then they have had a full-time technical director, they are more organised and they split the games 1-0 down here (last year). There was a definite improvement in their team. They have either caught us up some or we've slipped back.'' Darrell felt Bermuda Football Association should have been more forceful in demanding that Shaun Goater and Kyle Lightbourne be released by their clubs.

"I do sympathise with the two of them, with Kyle's Wembley appearance and with Shaun having worked so hard to get to where he is now, but we're saying we're prepared to help them achieve their individual goals at the expense of our World Cup aspirations,'' said Darrell.

Darrell was also sympathetic with the coaches who faced the difficulty of getting the best players together.

It has emerged that training sessions in the build-up to Sunday's match were not well attended.

"A number of players he would have loved to have had were not available for a number of reasons, whether they weren't interested or weren't prepared to come up with the necessary requirements, like drug testing,'' Darrell noted.

"He really didn't have the luxury of being able to pick our best talent. A lot of the guys just excluded themselves. Then there were guys away in school, the pros and you're talking about half the team that he didn't have at his disposal. I didn't have that problem.

"The spirit in my group at that time was something that had been building and growing over three or four years. The World Cup came at a good time for us, we were believing in ourselves and had gotten some good results against Barbados, Trinidad and a Russian team.

"I don't think this group had that luxury with people coming and going all the time and they really didn't get a chance to develop the camaraderie.'' Gary Darrell: led Bermuda through a successful World Cup campaign in 1992.