Bruce heaps praise on brilliant Bent

29/12/2009 08:06 +0100

Steve Bruce heaped praise on Darren Bent after his second-half double earned Sunderland a 2-2 draw after a grandstand finish at Blackburn.

Bent's brace took his Premier League total to 13 this season and Bruce said the striker's tally was rich reward for the attitude he has shown since his move from Tottenham.

Bruce said: "Darren has done terrifically well and he has been a breath of fresh air.

"He has wanted to play for us since the day we signed him.

"Darren has never groaned about the geography of where he's come and he has had a wonderful start.

"Obviously now we need to help him out a little bit but he has had a wonderful start."

But Bruce was left breathing a sigh of relief after his injury-hit side were twice pulled back level then survived a mighty scare when Chris Samba somehow poked a last-gasp rebound wide after Marton Fulop had brilliantly parried a point-blank header from Nikola Kalinic.

Bruce added: "We've deserved our bit of luck. The keeper's made a hell of a save and it (Samba's miss) will probably be on Christmas videos for the next 10 years.

"It would have been harsh on us because of the problems we've got and the teams we've had to field.

"I'm disappointed we didn't hold on to our leads but pleased we've come away with a point."

While Bruce joked about the first half being "the worst game of football I've ever witnessed", his counterpart Sam Allardyce sang the praises of his three late substitutes.

El-Hadji Diouf snatched the late equaliser while both Franco di Santo and Kalinic had fine chances to snatch a dramatic winner in the dying minutes. Allardyce said: "Dioufy took his goal really well but we haven't played well and it's disappointing that when we're scoring at Home it's to get back in a game rather than win it.

"It was a good show of character from the players but while I would have liked to have finished 2009 with a victory I have to be satisfied the way the game panned out."

Meanwhile, Allardyce admitted casting envious glances over at 13-goal striker Bent as his own strike-force continue to fail to find any kind of consistency. Allardyce said: "If we had a 13-goal striker like they have we'd probably be sitting in eighth place in the league looking down on the rest of them.

"Too many of our players haven't lived up to their reputations regularly enough and that has been a problem that has caused us to stumble in a part of the season when I thought we'd push on."