Injury-time equaliser heartbreak for Black Cats

PHIL Parkinson called Sunderland’s late heartbreak at Doncaster ‘cruel’, as the Black Cats dropped two points in injury-time at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Grant Leadbitter’s stunning strike just before half-time had given the Wearsiders a deserved lead and it looked like it would be enough to see off a below-par Rovers side, only for Fejiri Okenabirhie to level in a goalmouth scramble in the third minute of added time.

“It’s cruel,” said Parkinson.

“It’s hard to take when you concede to the last kick of the game, to really their only chance. It was their one moment.

“We tried to win the ball on the edge of the box and it’s come in, and how it’s ended up in the back of the net I don’t know because we had three defenders around their one player.”

The disappointment of that late equaliser took the gloss off an otherwise positive display in which Sunderland performed much better than in recent weeks.

Parkinson said: “It hurts when you concede late in the game, but I thought that first half was the best we’ve played for a long time.

“I thought we were excellent. “Some of the football we played and some of the movement in the wide areas, I was very pleased.

“Doncaster came into it in the second half to a certain degree, which you would expect because they’ve beaten some good teams here, but I still felt we had enough control in the game, we just needed to go and get that second goal.

“It’s a game where we should be talking about three points, but we’re not.

“We’re disappointed with that, but I do take heart from a lot of the football we played because I thought it was a lot better and we looked a lot more threatening.”