Football derbies are not supposed to be about friendliness, but Martin O’Neill is hoping Middlesbrough’s difficult patch comes to an end on Monday, writes Stuart Rayner.

HE is already feeling the benefit of their prodigious academy, but manager Martin O’Neill thinks a stronger Middlesbrough will make for a stronger Sunderland.

The two rivals meet at the Stadium of Light tomorrow with a place in the fifth round of the FA Cup at stake.

Sensing the value of a long-overdue cup run to his club, O’Neill is anxious to ensure the Teessiders do not get it.

However, when it comes to the yet more valuable prize of a place in next season’s Premier League, Tony Mowbray can expect the Ulsterman to be rooting for him.

Despite having been a Sunderland fan from afar all his life, O’Neill is still getting to grips with life in the North East, having only moved here last month.

Having been at Aston Villa at a time when the Midlands was well represented in the Premier League, O’Neill yearns for similar strength in numbers here.

He said: “In my growing-up days the North East was very strong and I might be in the minority in this but I would want Boro to get promotion from the Championship.

“Not at our expense – that is up to us – but it would be nice for this region to be strong again and you would want top-class players wanting to come to play for the clubs here.

“Sunderland has been everything I thought it would be and I am still learning about it the area, but there is no question the passion is there for the club in abundance.

“Sunderland are a proper football club. I do not know enough about Middlesbrough but the North East used to be the hotbed and it would be great to get back to that.

“I do not think peoples values have changed all that much. It is really a proper club.”

In the 1990s Boro addressed the problem of luring top players to the region by throwing obscene amounts of cash at them. Now they are trying to grow their own.

Mowbray has been a beneficiary, but so have others. Fabio Capello should have two Boro graduates to chose from on the wings at Euro 2012 in Stewart Downing and Adam Johnson, while Sunderland’s captain Lee Cattermole also came through the Rockliffe academy.