Hull City 1 Sunderland 4: IF THERE was a jarring note in the fanfare which greeted Ricky Sbragia's emergence as a genuine contender for the manager's post at Sunderland, it came when some of his players interrupted his post-match television interview with calls for the Scot to get the job.

They were on something of a high - Sbragia had described the mood in the dressingroom as "ecstatic" - but while a more relaxed regime is one of the reasons for Sunderland's improvement since the departure of Roy Keane, in the longer term discipline may be more important. It was probably no coincidence Sbragia went on to emphasise while his philosophy was to treat players as adults, there were still lines that could not be crossed.

Both he and the travelling support must have been aware good luck was an important factor on Saturday, just as it has been in the timing of Sbragia's promotion, temporary or otherwise. With the score at 1-1 and less than 15 minutes remaining of an entertaining, if often flawed contest, Sunderland were very much on the back foot and Sbragia admitted he would have taken a point. Instead, Kieran Richardson's long-range effort took a deflection to wrong-foot Hull goalkeeper Boaz Myhill, full-back Sam Ricketts got himself sent off for a second reckless tackle, and Sunderland picked up two more late goals on the break.

The fact the visitors got the breaks does not mean they did not deserve them. Hard though City worked, the extra quality on the ball of players like Steed Malbranque, Andy Reid and, in particular, the pairing of Kenwyne Jones and Djibril Cisse up front, ensured the visitors were consistently more threatening. Jones's increasing fitness after missing much of the first part of the season through injury and his growing understanding with Cisse have been vital in Sunderland's resurgence.

"Ricky is a really good guy," said Cisse. "He is quiet on the training pitch and doesn't really like to talk about himself much. He doesn't really like to be overly expressive, but he is really good and, for the moment, there is no reason for us to change the situation."

"Ricky's got a front two a lot of managers in the Premier League would take very happily," said Hull manager Phil Brown. Sbragia insisted he is simply working from game to game. "If you're winning, having a caretaker in charge doesn't do any harm. As I said last week, if they've got somebody planned, they've got some time to look at it, see the bigger picture. At present I'm just enjoying it."

• Guardian Service