Tony Mowbray explains his post-match message for his Sunderland players after late heartbreak against Hull City

The Black Cats had twice fought back to take a 4-3 lead in front of a 40,000 crowd, but Pierre Ekwah's foul on Greg Docherty allowed Ozan Tufan to equalise.

Sunderland played some superb attacking football and Mowbray said he was pleased with large parts of the performance in the second half, but admitted that it was a game that showed they still have a lot to learn.

"I think there were a lot of good stuff and a lot of things that were wrong," Mowbray said.

"We scored some good goals, we reacted well after a really, really poor opening 20 minutes. I said to them at the end that I felt good about the team even if that penalty doesn't leave you feeling good. It shows me that they can react. They cut us open pretty easily in the opening 20 minutes.

"I felt as if it was a slow start from a few of our players and we had a few words at half time to liven up. We were much, much better second half, and the chances they had we gave them. I can't really remember them getting near our goal other than a poor backpass, a difficult decision from Trai and the penalty. There were a lot of positives, I've said it every week and I don't want to sound like a broken record but this team is learning at the coalface and that is a harsh lesson.

"A harsh lesson for Pierre, for example, not to tackle last kick of the game - stand up and let them beat you and if they do, good luck to them. He will hopefully learn from that and take that into the rest of his career. He came to us having never played a senior game of football, his full debut was last weekend against Burnley. He's a young boy and it's a learning curve, and they're doing it right there [in the thick of it]. If you leave out a leg like that, someone will go over it. We all have to learn from it.

"Where this team has come from, we're going up against teams with a lot of experience in this division and we have to learn what this division is all about.

"For 20 minutes there it looked as if we'd never played together, but once we got those issues sorted I thought it was a good performance. We're left frustrated and disappointed really by the result.

"Lots to be pleased about, lots to work on - that's what I would say about this team."

Sunderland face Cardiff City on Monday as they looked to keep their slender play-off hopes alive, before home fixtures against Birmingham City and Huddersfield Town.