RAGING Hibs boss Neil Lennon last night hit out at referee Steven McLean after he disallowed an Oli Shaw goal in his side's 0-0 draw with Hearts at Tynecastle.

Shaw netted off the underside of the crossbar in the sixth minute of the Ladbrokes Premiership match - but McLean and his assistant Sean Carr refused to let it stand.

Television replays later showed the shot had clearly crossed the line and Lennon was furious even though the visitors extended their unbeaten run in the Edinburgh derby to nine games.

"It’s a goal," he said. "It’s well over the line. It’s a goal, everyone could see it. You could tell by way it came out of the goal.

"It’s a big, big decision that went against us again. Handball against Rangers and again tonight. That’s costing us important points.

"We were by far the better team on difficult pitch. So it’s great for my players. But I should be sitting here talking about a great win.

"He’s got to get it right. It’s a goal. A goal is a goal. It was a disgrace. It was daylight over the line. The way the ball comes out, it's at the back of the line."

Lennon added: "He said he couldn’t’ get a good view of it and the linesman didn’t see it. But the linesman saw every offside in the first half. He didn’t get the important one.

"These could cost us at the end of the season. We should be celebrating a big win. All the odds were against us, we were hearing all about what would happen to us here. It’s a hard one to take."

Asked if the referee had accepted he got the call wrong, Lennon added: "No, he didn’t acknowledge that because he didn’t know whether he’d got it wrong at the time.

"This is a huge game. It’s live on TV. It’s making a mockery of the game.

"I knew at the time it was a goal. Thirty seconds later, our boys are going nuts in the dugout because the guys behind are telling them it’s not even close."

Lennon's opposite number Craig Levein, whose side kept their fifth clean sheet in a row to earn a point, admitted that his side, who had gone into the game on the back of a seven game unbeaten run, had got lucky.

But he stressed that Hearts had also been denied two strong penalty claims in the second half after first Marvin Bartley and then Lewis Stevenson appeared to handle the ball.

"I think maybe it was a centimetre over the line," he said. "Jon (Hearts keeper McLughlin) said to me he though it was in. But we’ve had a lot of things go against us in recent times so we’ll take that one.

"I think we had two handball situations. I was too far away to say whether the hand was away from the body or not.

Levein added: "The game was one where both teams set out to be competitive and fight. We forgot about the football. That happens.

"We were better in the second half. We still defended well, but we passed the ball better. We also missed a sitter. I think one goal would have settled it. Still, I think we can do better than that.

"We’re unbeaten for eight in a row. Another 62 and we get Celtic’s record!"