We had lucky escape over penalty appeal, admits Ross

SUNDERLAND had a lucky escape when Port Vale saw their penalty claims fall on deaf ears, admits Jack Ross.

The Black Cats had raced into a 2-0 lead in their FA Cup first-round tie at Vale Park with George Honeyman putting them in front inside 40 seconds and Lynden Gooch adding the second after 20 minutes.

But Tom Pope pulled a goal back before half-time and there was a heart-stopping moment in the final 10 minutes when Luke Hannant went to ground inside the area under a sliding challenge from Jack Baldwin.

Referee Anthony Backhouse ignored Vale’s appeals, but Ross felt it could easily have been given. “I’ve not seen it [the penalty

incident] again, but from pitchside I thought it was a decent claim,” he said.

“I don’t always get it right from pitch-side, and that’s been the case with ones I thought we should have had [in other games].”

Sunderland closed the game out to book their place in tonight’s second-round draw.

Ross said: “It was a proper cup tie – especially the middle period of the game.

“The first half-hour was probably not what we expected – we were really dominant in that period, scored twice, and maybe if I was being hyper-critical, we could have scored a third to finish the game off.

“But to their credit, Neil [Aspin, Vale manager] changed their shape and made a

sub and scored a good goal, and from then until maybe 70 minutes it was proper cup-tie football.

“From 70-odd minutes to the end, we got a bit of a grip of the game again and probably could have scored again in that period.

“We looked reasonably comfortable. It’s another good learning experience for us.

“You’re going to come under pressure in any game, at any point, and quite often in that manner. We’ve got a lot better and dealing with that, and realising that if we do it, then we will have those periods again when we control it.

“I think, on reflection, it’s a good performance in difficult circumstances.”