TONY Mowbray had some stern words for his Sunderland players at half-time at Blackburn - even though the Black Cats led at the break at Ewood Park.

Sunderland were 2-1 up at the interval thanks to Jack Clarke's penalty and Dan Neil's strike in first half stoppage time either side of Harry Leonard's equaliser for the hosts, but despite their advantage the Black Cats were second best for most of the opening period because of what Mowbray felt was a lack of intensity.

Once the head coach had addressed that issue at the break, he was calm and confident throughout the second half, with Clarke adding his second goal 12 minutes from time to wrap up the points for the Black Cats, who climbed to fourth in the Championship table.

Mowbray said: "I'd like to put on record I think Blackburn are an amazingly talented football team, very well coached and they gave us lots of problems.

"Getting the intensity right on the back of a 5-0 and 3-1 win, with a young team it's difficult to get them to the level and I was trying to make them aware that they're playing a really talented football team who will overload centrally and they will get it through and get to your box. And they did that for half an hour or so and caused us plenty of problems.

"We scored at good times. We were really disappointed with their goal. We were down to 10 men and I don't know whether you've seen it but the linesman is nowhere near looking across the line. I don't know whether he's slipped but he's a good 10 yards behind the play. He's guessing. But it's irrelevant now.

"We sorted a few things out at half-time. We needed to play at more intensity really. They wanted to play through the middle of the pitch and we needed to be more aggressive. We looked a real threat and we looked like we'd score goals on transition when we won it back and broke into spaces they left.

"We found a way. The only thing I talked about at half-time was the intensity. If you sit off good football teams they pass around you. I say it every day to the team. You can't stand two yards off good players because they pass around you.

"We played against a good team with good rotations and good patterns of play. If you sit off them and you're not aggressive and make the feel your intensity, they'll play through you like a knife through butter. Second half I felt we were a real threat."

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The Blackburn success means Sunderland have now won three games on the bounce for the first time during Mowbray's tenure.

He said: "I've been challenging them on that. Somebody told me we had a good season and finished sixth but didn't win three games on the bounce.

"It's hard to do that and it's hard with a young team because of the emotion of winning, winning. They think they're a really good team. It was an amazing test for us tonight because we didn't have 68% of possession and 20 shots.

"In the second half, the intensity of our team changed the game."

Mowbray confirmed that Jewison Bennette was missing at Blackburn through illness.