MARK Hughes and Blackburn Rovers left Old Trafford with a sense of frustration and disappointment after he saw his side's unbeaten run come to an end.

Two first half goals from Cristiano Ronaldo in the space of two minutes gave Rovers a mountain to climb, but the early second half sending off extinguished any hope of a comeback.

"We more than held our own for the first thirty minutes," said Mark Hughes after the game. "Had Christopher Samba's strike gone in then who knows what would have happened, but it didn't go in.

"We were very much in the game in that first half but then we switched off at a set-play which is always disappointing, we didn't mark correctly and if you give Ronaldo a clear header just outside your six yard box then you are likely to pay the price, which we did.

"But then if you do you concede then you have to be really resolute to make sure that you don't concede immediately after. "Obviously we've had experience of that this year in the UEFA Cup and it hurt us and unfortunately it has occurred again, we are going to have to learn from that."

The visitors started the second half with intention of getting back into the game with an early goal, but any hope was quickly dashed when David Dunn was harshly sent off on 53 minutes after picking up his second yellow card of the game, something that Hughes felt ended the match as a contest.

"We were 2-0 down at half time but we still felt that there was something in the game for us, but that was taken away with the needless sending off of David Dunn. It was a mis-timed challenge, but I'm sure the referee will argue that they were two bookable offences.

"I thought it was very very harsh, there was seventy-odd thousand here today looking forward to a good second half with everything to play for, but as soon as the sending off was given that was the end of the contest unfortunately."

But Hughes was proud with the way his ten-man side were able to match United for the remaining 35 minutes: "I've seen teams go under here in similar circumstances, but I know the qualities of the side that I've got, they stuck at it when it could have been easy to take the easy option and just hide behind the fact that we'd lost a player to a sending off.

"But we didn't do that, we stuck at it and in fact we got a couple of half chances as well that maybe could have gone in so that shows good credit to the team.

"But we are disappointed and a little bit frustrated because of the circumstances of the second half and obviously when we switched off on the two occasions in the first half."