And the defender tackles the Blades again tomorrow hoping justice, if there is such a thing in football, evens itself out.

St Ledger was judged to have handled the ball to gift the Yorkshire side an equaliser from the spot 10 minutes from time in the reverse clash in October.

"No way was it a penalty – and it cost us two points," he said as he and his North End team-mates looked forward to taking revenge for that controversial visit to Bramall Lane.

"It still annoys me when I think back. We were looking comfortable and on our way to a win until the referee gave that penalty.

"Up to that point they were never going to score. But the decision changed everything. They got an equaliser and that gave them the
momentum to finish strongly. They might even have nicked it at the end.

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"The two points it cost us and another couple of refereeing decisions which went against us in other games too could have made all the difference this season.

"Right now we are nine points off the play-off places with six games to play. If we had been a little bit closer, who knows?"

St Ledger was on the field as a replacement for the injured Liam Chilvers that day in Sheffield and he and Youl Mawene looked to have seen off the dual threat of James Beattie and Jon Stead.

Handball

But substitute Danny Webber livened things up and it was a collision with him which referee Jarnail Singh saw as handball.

"The ball hit Webber and bounced off him on to my hand," said St Ledger minutes after the final whistle. "It was ball to hand – no way was it deliberate."

TV pictures backed up the defender's story, but the game ended 1-1 instead of 1-0 and Preston returned over the Pennines feeling badly-done-to.

The result left North End fourth-bottom and struggling. Five games later Paul Simpson was sacked and Alan Irvine inherited a side woefully low on confidence.

Today, St Ledger is feeling much better about life, although memories of that day at Bramall Lane still bring on feelings of injustice.

"We are still in a dogfight, we aren't out of it yet," he said. "But maybe it wouldn't have been quite so bad had we won that day like we should have done.

"We still need a few more points to be absolutely safe, although with 50 on the board we are practically there. Another three on Saturday against Sheffield United would go a long way to sorting that out."

For more from Sean St Ledger, pick up a copy of Friday's Lancashire Evening Post.