TONY Mowbray was pleased with his side's efforts after Sunderland got their pre-season underway with two wins against South Shields and Gateshead on Saturday.
The result is by no means the priority for Mowbray in pre-season games but the head coach was still pleased to see the Black Cats come from behind to beat Shields 4-3 and Gateshead 3-2.
And it wasn't lost on Mowbray that despite his side still being short of centre-forwards, they managed to hit seven goals over the course of the two games. Of course, playing against National League North and National League opposition is very different to the Championship challenge ahead, and strengthening up-front remains the transfer priority in the coming weeks.
Sunderland twice came from behind at Shields, with Hemir getting off the mark with a debut goal, Jack Clarke impressing and scoring twice and Chris Rigg marking his recently signed new deal with a late winner from the bench.
A Sunderland team featuring Jobe Bellingham, Dan Ballard, Dan Neil and Patrick Roberts were stunned by a quickfire Gateshead double in the second game, but fought back to win with goals from Neil, Niall Huggins and substitute Michael Spellman.
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Mowbray said: "We had to work hard. The first game we needed half-time to remind us that out of possession you need to work hard and run, it's pre-season, you have to play on the front foot.
"We're not playing to let South Shields build up from the back and have lots and lots of passes. We needed to get on the front foot and we did that.
"The second game, we shot ourselves in the foot with the two goals conceded but we worked our way back into the game and got the result. It was good for the young players to integrate with some of the senior players.
"I'm moaning that we don't have any strikers but we scored seven goals in two games. As the window unfolds in front of us I'm sure reinforcements will be coming, plus the injured players. There's no Batth today, no Embleton, no Stewart, Alese, Cirkin, I could go on.
"The young players who came in did really well and I'll put on record that both clubs that we played put on great hospitality and it was a great turn-out from our supporters, as you'd expect.
"The result is immaterial really but it's still nice to come away with two victories having found ourselves behind."
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