Phil Parkinson's verdict on what went wrong in dismal Bristol Rovers loss and why Kyle Lafferty sub summed up the night

The Black Cats lost 2-0 to Ben Garner’s side, who had once just once in eighteen league games before Jonson Clarke-Harris’ brace secured three points at the Memorial Stadium.

Parkinson was critical of referee Charles Breakspear for his performance, but said his side were too ‘caught up’ in the occasion and their frustrations.

Sunderland barely registered a shot on target in an insipid display, and Parkinson said that was due to them not sticking to the gameplan after a series of contentious early decisions.

“I thought we started OK, had decent control,” he said.

“We were passing it reasonably well but then we just caught up with the referee's decisions, the crowd, and we stopped playing.

“We were too emotional.

“There was an incident in front of the dugout on 30 minutes [a challenge from Luke Leahy on Jordan Willis], everyone reacts.

“But you've then got to be calm, cool, get back playing again.

“We end up conceding and we lost our way.

“We have to accept that it wasn't good enough.

“In any game it's been a physical challenge, you've got to be calm to understand how we're going to get back into the game, the movement, the patterns of play, the control,” he added.

“We just caught up into a frenzy, giving silly free-kicks away.

“I've got to be honest, I though the referee was very poor, but I've told the lads many times not to expect any favours away from home.

“We got caught up in that.”

Parkinson said the night was summed up by his decision to substitute Kyle Lafferty at the break.

Lafferty had picked up a booking late in the first half and was in regular dialogue with the referee thereafter.

“Lafferty, I brought him off at half-time because I thought he was going to get sent off,” Parkinson said.

“I think he was one moment away from coming off.

“He's a player who did so well for us at the weekend, and that really summed up the evening's work for us. “