Gary Rowell: Late Gillingham equaliser was a sickener but Kyle Lafferty could have key role to play for Sunderland this season

2-1 up with the clock running down, for the second time in the game they couldn’t defend a long throw and because of that weakness, and Mikael Mandron’s awareness, they paid a huge price.

What is it about ex-Sunderland players coming back to Wearside and haunting us?

It has happened so often to Sunderland over recent seasons and going way back.

Why wasn’t Mikael Mandron that good when he was plying his trade on Wearside?

His second goal was exceptional and broke every Sunderland fans’ heart, denying his former club a great position to strike into the top two.

With one minute to go on Saturday, Sunderland were in third spot, one point off automatic promotion then disaster strikes and instead of great optimism and joy, it is all doom and gloom and what might have been.

Has there ever been a club that constantly shoots itself in the foot, like Sunderland, we are the masters of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and yes I knew we drew, it just feels like a defeat.

What a difference that last minute might make to Sunderland’s entire season, if we had only held out and where did six minutes come from anyway, sometimes the frustration is just too much to bear.

The truth is though, despite all the disappointment of Gillingham’s late equaliser, Sunderland again didn’t play anything like good enough just like in the previous two games.

Gillingham were worthy of their point as Steve Evans and Mandron were quick to point out and as we have played Gillingham four times now and not won once I will be glad to see the back of Steve Evans’ team.

There were positives for Sunderland.

The obvious one being Kyle Lafferty’s double on his first full start and it can’t do any harm for the remaining nine games if we can have someone up the top end of the pitch who is firing on all cylinders.

Lafferty could be the key to the rest of the campaign, he is big, powerful and crucially now has goals - he is also fresh so should be relishing every single game we have left.