It's not often you hear of arch rivals agreeing to 'friendly' matches with each other, which is typically for a good reason as we saw from the five red-cards issued during Boca Juniors and River Plate's recent kickabout, but with both Sunderland and Newcastle not involved in FA Cup action this weekend the two teams decided to give some of their fringe players a run-out.
What we learned from this 'behind-closed-doors' friendly is that Sunderland's fringe players are far superior to Newcastle's as the Black Cats ran out 6-0 winners on Wednesday afternoon.
Sunderlandecho.co.uk posted a very brief match-report to give an idea as to how the match played out:
And it was Sunderland who finished as emphatic winners, with Duncan Watmore netting a hat-trick in the 6-0 triumph.
Steven Fletcher (twice) and Jack Rodwell were also on the scoresheet for Sunderland.
New signings Jan Kirchhoff and Dame N'Doye got some much-needed minutes for the Black Cats, with the on-loan Trabzonspor striker last playing for his parent club in December.
Newcastle fringe players Steven Taylor, Yoan Gouffran, Jamaal Lascelles, Sylvain Marveaux and Karl Darlow all featured for the Magpies.
Duncan Watmore the hero on the day.
It was designed purely for fitness purposes, but it has now given Sunderland fans something to mercilessly take the piss out of their neighbors over, as 6-0 is an utterly embarrassing scoreline to lose by, even in a game nobody saw.
These are the teams that played in the friendly:
Sunderland: Pickford; Matthews, Kirchhoff, Beadling, Yedlin; Toivonen, Rodwell; Johnson, Lens, Watmore; N'Doye
Newcastle: Darlow; Barlaser, Steven Taylor, Lascelles, Gibson; Roberts, Gouffran, Longstaff, Marveaux, Aarons; Riviere.
The last mysterious 'behind-closed-doors' friendly we heard about in a similar vein was when the Republic Of Ireland took on Northern Ireland in a thrilling 0-0 draw back in June of last year.
On that day both Martin and Michael O'Neill got a chance to get a look at some fringe players, and nobody got humiliated, but that's because nothing happened at all as you would have seen from our 'photos-only' match report.
