THIS week began with a couple of days away from the office, courtesy of Jon Callard.

Time off is rare for professional rugby players these days, with Zurich Premiership, Heineken Cup, National Cup and international matches to cram into what is a busy and demanding season, so as you can imagine it is extremely welcome.

The break can also provide an extended opportunity to recover from the knocks and bruises sustained within a sport where the hits are becoming ever harder.

But it is not just the physical knocks that players need a break from. Mentally the past month has been extremely demanding for everyone involved with Bath.

Without key players away on international duty this autumn, JC has had his work cut out just to field a side, and the youngsters that have come in have been thrown in at the deep end. However, I feel that we have all come through this test with flying colours.

Yes, it has been difficult rooted to the foot of the table, but we have now turned the corner and can look positively towards the rest of the season.

I feel that the likes of Olly Barkley, James Scaysbrook, Andy Williams, and Alex Crockett have done fantastically well coming into the squad in difficult circumstances. They have certainly not let their club down.

Yes, the defeats away to Quins and Bristol were disappointing in the respect that we really did not do ourselves justice, but there are also many positives to take from this autumn international period.

If someone had said that we would win two of our four matches during this period, I would have settled for that. In fact when you consider that the victories were against London Irish and Newcastle Falcons, two teams with huge Premiership aspirations, who arrived at the Rec second in the table, I feel that we have done tremendously well.

Last weekend's victory over the Falcons was probably the best we have played in the Premiership all season. After the Bristol defeat we were all determined to make amends and our forwards in particular had a fantastic match.

Newcastle are renowned for the strength of their pack, but we took them apart up front in what were tricky conditions.

A lot of credit must go to our forwards coaches John Hall and Jon Moore, who worked really hard with the boys last week.

We scored two good tries, and I was pleased that after an off-day with the boot against Bristol I kicked well. If we were being hyper-critical, I guess that you could say that we were a little disappointed not to have claimed a bonus point as we created a lot of scoring chances. But when all things are considered we were pleased to get a win that lifted us off the foot of the table.

We can now look forward to the rest of the season in a confident and positive manner.

All the England boys returned this week, and as you can imagine they are on top form at the moment. There is a real buzz about English rugby at the moment after three fantastic wins and this is already beginning to rub off on the rest of the Bath squad in preparation for the Wasps match on Sunday.

Nigel Melville's side are having a rough time at the moment. As we know from experience this season, being at the bottom of the pile creates massive pressure on coaches and players alike.

We will certainly not be taking them for granted as they possess some great players in Ian Jones, Craig Dowd, Phil Greening and Alex King. They are missing the leadership and direction of Dallaglio at the moment, but I'm sure that once he has returned to the fray that Wasps will be upwardly mobile in the table.

We have the rare luxury of being able to select from a full squad, with the exception of Lyle and Dorsey, who are both away on international duty for the US against South Africa this weekend, but I'm anticipating a tough but exciting, open match.

Matt Perry