Simon Grayson sung the praises of his players at full-time as Sunderland booked their place in round three of the Carabao Cup.
The Black Cats boss made a host of changes at Brunton Park and he was left justified in his decision to do just that as Lynden Gooch impressed throughout the opening period with numerous tenacious runs into the channels and behind Carlisle's backline.
Gooch orchestrated the first goal alongside Bryan Oviedo, the American produced a neat pull-back into the path of Donald Love and he made no mistake from seven yards to open the scoring.
Love fired home before the break to give the Black Cats the lead with stopper Robbin Ruiter making a string of important stops to stake his claim for a starting berth.
Ruiter was then involved in the thick of the action in the second period, batting Danny Grainger's penalty back into his path for him to slam home the rebound. All square.
But Gooch turned from being provider to finisher 10 minutes from time as he smacked home from 20 yards to restore the lads’ lead and seal their place in Thursday’s 4.15am draw.
Speaking post-match the Sunderland boss delivered his verdict.
"We knew they would have a right go at us, ask questions of us, play balls into the box and play with a tempo," he said.
"It was no surprise to myself and the players. They have done ever so well because we got through the game and that's all we had to do.
"I said to the players before the game that we don't want to be the shock of the round, we wanted to progress and we wanted to make sure we did a professional job.
"That's how it panned out but we had to withstand quite a bit of pressure."
He continued: "We made a conscious decision that we needed to rest some of the lads who have played in the last few games because it has been a tough shift.
"I also wanted to see the other lads play as well. They have trained well and been itching to get their name on the teamsheet.
"We went with the changes that we did but it certainly wasn't a weakened team, we didn't go with under-23s - it was players who have been around this squad quite a bit now.
"I had a strong bench just to make sure if anything went through we could come back to that but fortunately we saw enough of the game to win it."
