Bath Rugby owner Bruce Craig says he set his initial expectations of the club too high following another disappointing campaign at The Rec.
Craig bought the club three years ago with the intention of turning Bath into a powerhouse of European rugby. Since then, however, they have achieved a best Aviva Premiership finish of fifth in 2010-11 and have failed to qualify for the Heineken Cup in the last two campaigns.
In an interview with BBC Points West, Craig admitted that although disappointed Bath have fallen short of the ambitions he targeted upon acquiring the club, he underestimated how long the process to achieve success would take.
"I think from the point where I took over the club, the expectation of where we were going to go and how quickly we were going to go - from myself and probably everyone involved - was maybe exaggerated because of not necessarily understanding the depth of work that needed to be done," said Craig.
"You believe it will be easier and human nature is that you are optimistic. What happened was probably sub-optimal - it was not what we would have liked but there was a reason behind that.
"With hindsight, where we are today and the things that are being built, we feel are the right things.
"It's frustrating. It's frustrating for the supporters, it's frustrating for the coaches, it's frustrating for the players, it's frustrating for me.
"But we didn't qualify, that says something. It says that we weren't quite at the level we need to be.
"This year we had some exceptional performances. We played extremely well at The Rec. We won against Leicester, we won against Harlequins, we won against Gloucester.
"Our objective is to be able to compete with those top teams on a regular basis, so that as you go through into the play-offs you are actually in a position where you can achieve the win."
Having invested into the club from his personal fortune, Craig said building a successful Bath remained his passion and hoped to reap the benefits in the next three seasons.
"I knew that this club needed significant investment, so the losses for a number of years are understood and accepted," said Craig.
"It's my passion, it's my pleasure and there's the creation of something going forward.
"If you don't have a vision of what the future is likely to look like then it's a bottomless pit of money just being put in, so there needs to be a plan, there needs to be a vision of what it is about.
"We have that, we know where we are and need to go and I think by 2015-16 our plan would be to break even.
"We can compete next year and certainly within the next two to three years we will be expecting success.
"I would be expecting success, the coaches would be expecting success, the players will, the supporters will.
"There is a point at which we all expect to see an article which is close to getting finished."
