Ipswich Town boss delivers verdict on how his side were able to beat Sunderland

Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna praised his players for coming through a challenging opening quarter at the Stadium of Light to take three points from the opening game of the Championship season.

Sunderland started brightly at the Stadium of Light but Ipswich, who have been widely tipped to launch a promotion push this season, took the lead on the stroke of half time thanks to Nathan Broadhead's goal.

The former Sunderland loanee then turned provider shortly after the break, playing in George Hirst who fired past Anthony Patterson.

Despite losing Trai Hume to a second yellow card the hosts almost rescued a point after Dan Neil reduced the deficit, though McKenna's side also spurned some big counterattacking opportunities.

McKenna said his side initially struggled with the tempo of the game but said they were eventually rewarded for playing through Sunderland's high-pressing approach.

"We spoke before the game about the application and setting the tone for how we're going to be," McKenna said.

'We set the tone for how we're going to work and how hard we're going to have to work. It was a big challenge, a very strong opponent in front of a full house. It took every ounce of effort.

"We know we're going to have defend more this season. We want to press more aggressively than we managed to do in the first half here, I think the level of the game and the opponent was a big step up and I think the players felt that in the first 20 minutes. We weren't able to break their press as well as we wanted and we weren't able to find the extra step to get enough pressure on the ball. "We made a change tactically to be more aggressive as the half went on. We know we're going to have defend at times at this level, but we also know that we can show bits of what we did today. We were brave with our build up, we were patient and tried to the right things to find the spare player. We started to do that as the half went on and at the start of the second half, and that enabled us to get a foothold in the game.

"We knew at the end it was going to be tough, the third goal was going to be key. At a ground like this, two-nil is never safe.

"We could have done better on some counterattacks, we could have killed the game off and so it had to be bodies on the line at the end. We had to rely on some good goalkeeping, some good defending and a little bit of luck to get over the line at the end."

While Sunderland were left frustrated with the decision to show Hume a second yellow card midway through the second half, McKenna and Ipswich felt his side should have been awarded a penalty when Dan Ballard challenged Hirst. Hirst was following up an audacious chip from long-range from Conor Chaplin, which beat Anthony Patterson but bounced off the crossbar.