PHILIPPE Saint-Andre believes Chris Bell was denied a try against London Irish on Friday night because of a mix-up between the painted lines that define the playing area.

Sharks’ director of rugby insisted that winger Bell touched the ball down before it went dead but believes the referee ruled out the score because it had crossed the goal-line used to mark out the pitch for football matches.

"Chris Bell scored but the referee thought it was the line of football," said Saint-Andre. "It was difficult because there were no TV cameras there."

When matches are being shown live on television referees can refer decisions to the video referee, who will review the footage and decide if the try should stand.

Twenty-six-year-old Bell was also confident that he had scored a legitimate try.

Speaking to the Express after the game Bell explained: "I think I definitely scored a try from the game.

"There are two lines at the back of the field, because of the football pitch.

"There’s a blue line and a white line and I’m sure, and I’m certain a couple of players around me are 100 per cent sure, that I got it down before the white line.

"That is a spur of the moment decision we’ll have to check the [club’s] video and see if the referee got it right or wrong."

In the end the disallowed try didn’t affect the result, Sharks winning by six points and avenging the defeat inflicted by Irish last season that denied Sale a place in the Premiership play-offs.

Bell added: "There’s a lot of players that played in this game that played in the last game of last season and were very hurt and upset about how that happened because obviously we wanted to play in the play-offs.

"It was very pleasing that we won today, I think we played the conditions very well, we were very physical in the contact area and it was a great team performance so the changing room was buzzing.

"It’s a good morale booster going into next week."

The match, played in sub-zero temperatures, lost some of its muscle when uncontested scrums were introduced following injury to Irish’s front-row substitute, Alex Corbisiero, on 56 minutes.

London Irish director of rugby Toby Booth said: "It’s sod’s law that it is minus five outside and everyone wants a cuddle to keep warm, you send on a sub to keep up the momentum and two minutes later he’s hobbling off. We were disappointed that contest [in the scrum] was taken out of the game."