Quins showed fight in a 17-17 draw with Newcastle on Friday, ending a run of three defeats since the departure of director of rugby Dean Richards. Richards was banned for three years after wing Tom Williams faked a blood injury in the Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster in April. Williams was banned for four months, reduced from 12 on appeal, and the club fined £259,000.

"The background with which we have come into this season has been obviously unique and something that nobody would ever wish on anybody frankly," he said. "All we want to do now is kick on and play rugby. I hope people watching are thinking Harlequins are quite a positive side.

"It (the scandal) has been sitting around me about 30% of my life, therefore I would have to say that could you question whether I could operate on 70% of what I should be thinking about. So that is probably an accurate analogy of everyone at Harlequins. But we want to kick on now."

Barnes took the whistle for an Air New Zealand Cup game last weekend, leading New Zealand Rugby Union high performance referees manager Bray to put forward his hopes that it will become a regular occurrence. He believes that experiencing different refereeing styles will lessen the shock value for players at Test level.

"I guess at the next level down, if you think of the possibility of an RFU (Rugby Football Union) referee coming to New Zealand and a New Zealand referee going to England, that could be very feasible next year at some stage in our calendar," he said. "I think with Sanzar (Super rugby) and the Heineken Cup it's probably a year after that.

"I'd like to talk to the European (referees) managers and probably also (International Rugby Board referees boss) Paddy O'Brien on the basis that maybe there is an opportunity to bring a couple of guys in prior to the World Cup (in 2011) so they might arrive a bit earlier and get some rugby in New Zealand prior to the World Cup. I think from our point of view the sooner we can start to get some activity happening across the boarders the better.

"It actually helps create an understanding that all referees are very similar across the board in world rugby. It's an opportunity to break down perceived barriers as opposed to real ones. If you get players and referees experiencing each other's environments at levels down from Test rugby there is far less of a perceived culture shock or perceived difference when you finally hit Test rugby because you're comfortable with each other."