RICHARD Hill stopped short of blaming defeat on the colour of his side's shirts – but the Bristol head coach is not happy about his team being made to play their home matches in their white away kit.

As they were told to do on the opening day of the Guinness Premiership season against Bath, Bristol were again in their change strip of all white for Friday's visit of Sale Sharks.

It was deemed that Bristol's home strip of blue and white stripes clashed both with both Bath and Sale's home and away kits – all various different combinations of blue, black and white, in both of their opening games.

And Hill, whose side lost 9-6 on Friday, believes the all white kit may be one of the reasons why his side are conceding so many penalties at the moment.

"We gave away some silly penalties – particularly in the first half and particularly in attack," said Hill.

"I'll tell you what it is – it's the white shirts. And if someone can tell me why we are playing at home in away shirts against Bath and Sale, when we should be in blue, then I'd like to know.

"When you've got a bright white shirt on at night under lights, that is the shirt that gets spotted first. I'm not being funny, it's a standard thing.

"And I'm not particularly happy that we have played in our away jerseys in our first two home games. It's absolutely ludicrous.

"I don't blame the referee, I blame whoever decided to have us in white jerseys for these games.

"That is a practical reason and I am absolutely certain that does not help you to get away with things as easily as if you have got a dark shirt on."

It used to be the case that the home team would change in the event of a clash of colours, but since the Premiership brought in new rules regarding change strips, it has been the away side who have had to change.

League administrators even forced Harlequins, whose multi-coloured, quartered shirt does not clash with any other team's kit, to introduce a change strip on the grounds that every club had to have one.

Aside from his playing kit disappointment, Hill was upbeat despite seeing his side slip to a third straight Premiership defeat this season – and a ninth in total. "The performance was an improvement and we were up against one heck of a Sale line-up," said Hill, whose side go to Newcastle on Friday.

"That sets the marker now – that's how Bristol normally perform and that's how we need to continue.

"When we play sides who will probably end up in the bottom six, then that sort of performance will normally be good enough to win."