HAVING only made his first appearance for Sunderland on Saturday it is little wonder Rory Delap is refusing to accept his new club's relegation fight is already a lost cause.

While no Black Cats player has declared publicly that dropping back into the Championship is a formality, privately there must be a general consensus that Championship football will return next season.

And Delap, despite only joining Sunderland on deadline day in January, is of the same opinion. Why would they give up a battle against the drop when there is still a chance, albeit a slim one, that the greatest of great escapes can still be achieved?

And the free capture from Southampton, who tasted the bitter experience of relegation with the Saints last season, feels there is still a unity within the camp that belies the club's calamitous position.

"We don't have to look to next season and accept anything," said Delap. "If you do we might as well pack in and I don't see that in any of the other lads.

"The camp is good and that's all I have seen considering the position we're in. I know it's hard but you have to keep your head up.

"I knew the gaffer (Mick McCarthy) and Iain Evans from my Ireland days and I did not think they would have a club with low morale. That has proved the case because the spirit is still here.

"We have had weekends off and the gaffer has had it hard to get the right mix. But the lads do things like golfing, racing and paintballing. Anything really to just change the scenery which you need sometimes."

Delap, who turns 30 in July, has 11 caps for the Republic of Ireland and was handed his international debut by McCarthy.

He was quick to join Sunderland once he realised McCarthy was interested in his services and would love nothing more than to help his boss achieve the 19 point total that the manager has set his sights on.

That was the number of points Sunderland went down with three years ago and remains the lowest total recorded by a Premiership club.

Delap said: "It must be the hardest thing to be a manager because you can't do an awful lot when the game kicks off. No one at the club wants to be involved in that record. You don't want to be known as one of the worst teams in premier history - the worst. And the manager certainly doesn't."

Saturday's defeat to Birmingham was Delap's first game since playing for Southampton against his former club Derby on January 21 after being sidelined with an Achilles injury.

"It was nice to be finally involved because it seems ages ago when I signed," said Delap. "It was disappointing the result. ."It's not a great way to start and we had a great chance to beat Birmingham. They are down there with us. It wasn't to be an we have to pick ourselves up."

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