Back in the Netherlands after coaching the Dutch side in the recent CLICO International Under-15 championship in the Caribbean, Roland Lefebvre has had a little time to reflect on the experience.

The Dutch boys struggled in the two-week tournament, losing to Malaysia and the combined Americas development side as well as to Bangladesh and Pakistan, before defeating Kenya in their final match to claim seventh place.

Lefebvre is frank about the fundamental lessons his side needed to learn, and critical of some of their attitudes.

‘Our Guyanese liaison officer put it well at our departure,’ he says, ‘when he said that the squad were a good bunch of guys, but that they’d perhaps had rather too much fun.

‘I would say myself that the behaviour of some of them sometimes bordered on the anti-social.’

For Lefebvre, conduct off the field is directly related to performances on it; attitudes to punctuality, to dress codes, and towards the team management are all part of an approach to cricket which he is trying, evidently with some difficulty, to inculcate in his charges.

‘This was a fantastic opportunity,’ he points out. ‘The sponsors invested $1.6 million in this tournament, and the boys were treated like real internationals, playing real man’s cricket, practising and playing in first-class facilities, enjoying first-class accommodation, but also having to face up to the pressures that international sport brings with it.’

He is delighted with the way some of the side responded to the challenge, and pleased that they were runners-up for the tournament Spirit of Cricket award.

‘I was really impressed with Sebastiaan Braat, who took over the captaincy,’ says Lefebvre. ‘He displayed real leadership qualities, and proved that he has a huge heart.’

He also singles out allrounder Nick Wories, slow left-armer Usman Yousaf and leg-spinner James Gruijters as players who made significant progress during the competition.

The slow turning wickets on which the games were most played proved a severe test of the limitations of the Dutch batsmen, their coach acknowledges.

‘You have to deal with the moving ball early on,’ he says, ‘but then you have to cope with the turn, you have to be quick on your feet, you have to use the depth of the crease, you have to be creative against spin.

‘Our batsmen could survive OK, but they were often too apprehensive to take advantage of the bad balls, and they have still to develop the rapid thought processes you need to be able to do well at this level.’

So what’s the way forward, if the experience gained in the Caribbean is not to be wasted?

‘Ideally, we need to establish some kind of High Performance set-up for the most talented young players,’ says Lefebvre, who is the KNCB’s director of youth cricket.

‘But we’re still desperately short of manpower, and in practice we’re going to have to rely on the clubs, at least in the short term, to help with the development of their best young cricketers.

‘They need to train more, and harder, and their training needs to be directed more towards the development of individual skills. And they need to work on their fitness, and improve their fielding.

‘Above all, they have to be hungrier. You have to be prepared to do more than the bare minimum if you want to succeed in international sport.’

Most of the squad are already playing for senior teams in their clubs, as well as in the KNCB’s Saturday youth competitions.

And a Somerset under-13 side will visit in July, as part of the Dutch preparations for the European under-15 championships in Jersey in August, in which Jersey and Guernsey will take part in Division 1 for the first time.

Struggling with limited resources and an ever more demanding international programme, Lefebvre hopes that an improved ICC funding regime from 2009 will make possible the creation of a regional coaching structure like that which now operates in Scotland.

But in the end, it all comes back to the players themselves.

‘I was disappointed and frustrated by the failure of some of the boys to take responsibility for their own game,’ he says. ‘I find myself asking, where’s the humility, where’s the respect?

‘Without those qualities, you aren’t going to get very far.’