Harlequins forward Nick Kennedy says the banter has stopped flying and he has put his game-face on as he prepares to lock horns with his old London Irish pals this weekend.

Kennedy spent more than a decade with the Exiles under Conor O’Shea before briefly heading to France and returning to British soil for a reunion with his former boss at Quins.

He still regularly socialises with some of old crowd at the Madjeski Stadium but admits the mood has become tense ahead of the first of five games that will decide their play-offs fate.

“I was there for 12 years,” Kennedy said of this Saturday’s opponents London Irish.

“They signed me straight out of university and I spent a third of my life there so I have fond memories. I’ve still got some friends knocking around there as well like Shane Geraghty, Topsy Ojo and Declan Danaher who I played with for years. We meet up everys often to catch up.

“It normally goes quiet on the texting front on the week of the game. The banter dies down in the build up and everyone just gets on with their job. I’ll be a bit wary of Chris Hala'ufia who I played with for a few years. He used to kill people in tackles! So I’ll definitely watch out for him.”

Harlequins were beaten 39-17 by Premiership leaders Saracens on Saturday and are now sixth in the table, nine points adrift of fourth-placed Leicester Tigers in the race for the play-offs, however Kennedy is not about to throw in the towel.

“It’s still possible mathematically,” he said. “It’s what we’re striving for and what our season is all about so we’ll keep fighting for it. We just have to take each game as it comes, try and keep winning and see where we come the end of the season.

“Obviously you’d rather be in the top-four and have it in your hands but the run-in throws up difficult games for everybody. If we were there in the top-four people would be looking to knock us off, now we’re looking to knock them off.”