Lions coach John Mitchell believes that television match officials should be given more power in order to ensure that the correct decision is made more consistently.

Mitchell, who is filing a formal complaint about the performance of the match officials in his side's 32-20 loss to the Sharks on Saturday, would like to see the TMO given the power to weigh in on incidents in the build-up to tries.

As things stand the TMO may only provide information which relates to the act of scoring and may not consider anything that occurs before the tryline, with the exception of the touchline.

However, Mitchell said that he could not see any reason why TMOs could not be granted additional powers so that the correct decision is made more often by using all of the evidence and technology available.

"I think we should increase the TMO's power to go back from the tryline, back to where play started," he said. "The law goes back to the point of where play started, which is correct, whether it is a scrum or a lineout."

He said rugby had technology at its disposal and to ask the TMO to review play a few movements back would not slow down the cadence of a match by much.

His call for the International Rugby Board (IRB) to review the powers of the TMO is part of a growing chorus on this issue.

Last week, South African referees' manager André Watson weighed into the debate after the Super Rugby clash between the Cheetahs and Bulls a fortnight ago.

A try by Bulls prop Dean Greyling was awarded despite video evidence of double movement leading to the try.

While the video evidence suggested it was not a try, the problem lay in the match referee Craig Joubert's question to the TMO Johan Meuwesen.

He asked Meuwesen only if there was any reason not to award the try as he was unaware of the double movement.

Meuwesen could, however, only officiate on the grounding of the ball in that situation and not the earlier indiscretion. It is believed that if greater powers were to be granted to TMOs it would negate injustices such as these.