WELCOME to a new season back in the Premiership at Sixways!

I hope everyone enjoyed their summer holidays more knowing we have returned to the top-flight. I can assure you I did!

We have of course been busy, though.

After the drama of the two-legged final last season, we enjoyed four weeks off with our families and friends.

We then returned mid-June to begin the hard work.

Coming into pre-season, we all had good baseline fitness, largely down to carrying a higher training load in the Championship.

This meant Stuart Pickering and the rest of the strength and conditioners could hone in on individual goals. The results have been superb!

I am sure those who have watched our pre-season games would agree that we look like a different team.

I believe we are in the best shape we have ever been in.

We are also blessed this season with good strength in depth and genuine competition for every starting jersey.

This is a healthy position to be in.

There is a real sense things are finally beginning to move forward as they have threatened to for so long now.

Richard Hill has made some superb signings, bringing in the cream of the Championship and Premiership players with points-to-prove. Arguably our best capture of the close-season was Phil Larder to run our defence.

Having missed the opportunity to work with Phil during his last spell with us, he has more than lived up to his reputation.

It excites me to think just how good we could become so long as we keep working hard towards the coaches’ goals.

Our initial look at first XV rugby came against Super 15 opposition with the visit of the Melbourne Rebels.

As a young English player, you look at Southern Hemisphere teams with huge respect and admiration.

The chance to test ourselves against such opposition doesn’t come about very often.

We took our chance. New recruits Errie Claassens and Josh Drauniniu showed why they caused Championship teams problems last season with great attacking rugby.

The second-half defensive effort showed the spirit and enthusiasm that will take us far this season, giving us a 15-3 victory.

It was a very different game at Brickfields against Plymouth Albion but we again showed class touches in attack.

Andy Short firmly put his hand in the air for selection against Sale and we wound up winners 52-13.

Next up in our preparation for Premiership action was a hugely exciting fixture with Argentina.

Our defence was again solid and confidence was rubbing off into our attacking game.

It was clear to me we were the more threatening side and deserved to win.

It was a huge effort and another step forward but the international side pipped us at the end with a length-of-the-field interception try.

There were again huge performances from Matt Mullan, Dale Rasmussen, Alex Grove, James Percival and many others.

Cornish Pirates offered a different threat on Saturday and, returning with a strong pack, they sought revenge.

The less said the better at this stage after our 24-21 defeat but we will look at where we went wrong and fix it.

The positives were good debuts from some youngsters coming through the academy.

James Freeman and Tom Leach showed our back row is in good hands for the future.

James Currie and Nile Dacres also impressed.

We did show good fighting spirit to put ourselves in a position to win the match.

Ultimately, we let ourselves down but we must now move forward.

Overall, pre-season has been extremely good but leaves us with plenty to work on.

We do, however, have a good base from which to start.

This season promises to be a good one and we are looking forward to welcoming Sale Sharks to Sixways to kick things off.

We are moving forward and it all starts on Saturday.

I hope you can join us.