After the maelstrom, a semblance of normality appears to be returning to the Recreation Ground ahead of Bath's biggest game of the season.

This may not have been the easiest of weeks for the club – but Alex Crockett has urged his team-mates to forget about any off-field issues and concern themselves solely with beating Toulouse this weekend.

The French champions arrive in town on Sunday for a Heineken Cup Pool Five match which will determine which team claims top spot and with it guaranteed qualification to the last eight.

Bath have been no strangers to controversy down the years, but this week's failed drugs test by their England prop Matt Stevens has threatened to cause them more damage than any of their previous indiscretions, given the magnitude of both the sin and their next fixture.

Club captain Crockett remembers Bath overcoming the fall-out of the "Stan Collymore incident" in Dublin in 2004 – when the former footballer alleged he had been attacked by several members of the Bath squad – as well as a number of other off-field issues including his own drink-drink conviction in 2006.

And he sees no reason why Stevens' failed test – and subsequent admission of a problem with a recreational drug – should have any bearing on what happens on the field on the Rec at 3pm on Sunday.

"There has been a bit of controversy around the club in the past, but time is a healer and we're waiting for this to blow over," said Crockett. "We will give our best to Matt but then we have to get on with our jobs.

"It's not as if anything about Sunday's game has changed – we have known for a long time that it is a winner-takes-all scenario and that is still the case, even after the week we've had."

Crockett says there will be no excuses if Bath, who hold pole position in the pool after their win at Newport and Toulouse's home defeat to Glasgow last weekend, fail to win on Sunday.

And he believes this is the ideal opportunity for his club to show they can win the biggest of matches, having lost in the dying seconds at Le Stadium in October.

"It's great to run out here in front of a full house on any weekend, but I think Sunday will have something really special about it," said local lad Crockett. "The thought of winning and being in a Heineken Cup quarter-final is fantastic, so we will be focused and geared up for it.

"It's good for the squad to be playing games like this. We have proven we can win the mediocre games, if you like, and the week in, week out Premiership games – but, although we won the Challenge Cup last year, I still think we have got some proving to do to as a squad to some sceptics about the bigger occasions.

"By that I mean finals and semi-finals and knocking off the big dogs in the so-called big games. Games like this can hopefully go a long way to taking us up to the next stage."

Simply getting to the stage where they are top of the pool with one match to play – and their destiny very much in their own hands – is credit to Bath's professionalism in the four matches since their agonising late defeat at Toulouse.

They have overcome the tricky challenges of home and away matches against Glasgow and Newport Gwent Dragons, while Toulouse stuttered at home to the Scottish side last week, going down 33-26.

"In the past, Bath teams may have taken their finger off the pulse and perhaps taken a few of those games for granted," said Crockett.

"Maybe we wouldn't have been as mentally strong before, but we have had a job to do and we have done it. People perhaps don't give Glasgow or Dragons much credit, but those were bloody hard games.

"What has gone on this week cannot affect us now we have come this far. The fact is we have got arguably Europe's best rugby team coming to our home ground on Sunday.

"It's nice to have it in our own hands – and although we all realise this is probably the biggest hurdle yet, we wouldn't want it any other way."

Two of Bath's brightest prospects, prop Nathan Catt and full-back Jack Cuthbert, have signed new two-year deals with the club.