PETER Reid and Graeme Souness spoke after their sides' drew a blank and shared the points at Ewood Park.
Peter Reid said: "To keep a clean sheet against such an attacking side with so many options was very pleasing.
"In the first half I thought we passed it around very well in spells then in the second half they came at us quite a bit stronger which you'd expect with their kind of quality.
"But we dug in and came away with a point which was richly deserved by the players.
"The commitment they showed and the way they grafted was a good plus for us because this is a hard place to come.
"From my point of view Blackburn Rovers are very, very good going forward and in the boy Duff they have one of the most outstanding attacking players in the league.
"So Stephen Wright had a very busy day but I thought he handled him very well.
"As for our fans, I don't like harping on about it because I sound like a broken record.
"There is a minority who aren't happy which I can understand because you can't please everyone all of the time.
"But I'm doing my best because that's all I can do and so are the players and if we stick together then we can be a force."
Graeme Souness said: "On another day we would have won that game easily. Sunderland showed us great respect in the formation they put out with five across the middle and just one up front.
"But if we continue to play as we did in the second half here then we'll cause teams lots of problems over the course of the season."
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