Steve Meehan today blamed refereeing edicts for his club's poor form. The Bath coach also discussed the trauma of the drugs investigation which saw players leave the club in the summer.

Bath, one place and three points off off the bottom, are yet to win at the Rec in the league and Meehan called an emergency meeting following a 16-0 defeat by London Irish.

"It wasn't about my vision, it was about how we are feeling about various issues that have been surrounding us," said the Australian. "It's about where we are as a collective … It's no good me or a member of the coaching staff saying, 'When we take the field we will do this,' if five of the 15 guys don't buy into it and then go off and do their own thing. We have to make sure we're all working together."

In Meehan's two full seasons in charge, Bath have played attractive rugby, third and fourth in the league and winning the European Challenge Cup. However, this year they have lost five players – the Lions prop Matt Stevens admitted taking cocaine; Michael Lipman, Alex Crockett and Andrew Higgins left after the club alleged they had refused to take drug tests; and Justin Harrison sought an early release from his contract before being banned from the game for eight months after admitting taking cocaine. Stevens has been told he will be welcomed back once he has served a two-year ban.

Meehan said: "It has been a difficult year for us and I think a lot of us probably underestimated how big a change it was and exactly what was happening. We lost some big characters there."

Regarding the refereeing of the tackle area he said: "It seems there was a little bit of confusion and we've sorted that out. We've had to address the game in a different way. Through the law changes, it's been refereed in a different manner to how we thought it was going to be. We put in place various changes and some players understood the intentions immediately while others thought we were becoming a conservative side who just wanted to kick everything away."

Meehan said such confusion had resulted in "indecision from time to time" and "performances that have been a bit disjointed" although he was convinced yesterday's meeting had cleared the air. "The whole squad had the opportunity to voice their opinions," he said. "You hope that as a result people will be more open."