BATH will face no tougher test than when they travel to Premiership leaders Saracens on Saturday as they look to get their season back on track.

The stats don’t make for easy reading for the Bath faithful, with Sarries having only lost one of their last 18 games and Bath having only won one of their last 11 encounters with Mike McCall’s side.

Add to that the fact that Mike Ford’s team have slipped to four straight defeats in all tournaments, seeing them crash out of Europe, in contrast to Saracen’s six-straight pool group wins, then Bath’s task in hand looks unenviable.

Despite that, back row Guy Mercer says that the feeling in the Bath camp is good this week and there is a determination to get their season back on course.

“Morale is good,” he said. “We have had to have some tough conversations in the past couple of weeks but we are a pretty positive group.

"The international guys will have got to go away and have a fresh environment and we get a few of those back for the game, which will hopefully adds impetus to our week back here.

“This week is a good opportunity to refocus, with some of the boys who have got to step up now in the coming weeks with the six nations on. There is plenty of activity at the training ground and we have got to make sure we are ready for what will be a hell of a test up at Saracens.

“We’re not feeling particularly bad going into it. We have broken down the way that Saracens play and think there are some good opportunities for us in terms of the way we want to play.

“We have got to take one step at a time and start closing out these tight games.

“Some of our discipline needs to improve a little bit and then we need to get back to doing what we do best.

“We have shown a few glimpses of that in the last few games so we need to tie it all together and we’re going to have to deliver for a full 80 minutes to get a result against Sarries.”

Meanwhile, four Bath players have been retained by Eddie Jones for the rest of England's first training week ahead of the RBS 6 Nations.

Ollie Devoto, George Ford, Jonathan Joseph and Anthony Watson will all remain in camp at Pennyhill Park, whilst Semesa Rokoduguni and Henry Thomas will return to Bath.