Neal Ardley used all his managerial nous at half-time on Saturday to turn a 2-0 deficit into a morale-boosting 3-2 triumph.
Half-way through the League Two clash with Scunthorpe United at the Cherry Red Records stadium, the AFC Wimbledon boss walked into the dressing room to find angry players turning on each other.
At the final whistle, it was a different story after goals from Michael Smith, Harry Pell and Chris Arthur inflicted upon the Iron their first league defeat of the season.
The Dons were also on the end of high praise from the visiting management team after putting three past a defence that had conceded just once in four games until their visit to south west London.
Ardley said: “At half-time, the players had lost their way a little bit and I had to get them back together.
“They had played really well for 15 minutes, then gone 1-0 down out of nothing.
“We’d missed a penalty and found ourselves 2-0 down, so you can forgive the players for thinking this is not going our way.”
He added: “They started to turn on each other a little bit, everyone was having their say and I could see that it would not help if I went in all guns blazing.
“It was a case of me saying: ‘You’re not going to get back into this as individuals, playing on your own, you’ve got to come together and this is what we’ll do’ and they were excellent in the second half.”
Dons host Fleetwood this weekend with Rhys Weston likely to continue his role in central defence in the continued absence of Alan Bennett and Will Antwi.
But Ardley has faith in Weston, despite the 32-year-old having a tough game against the Iron’s Chris Iwelumo on Saturday.
Ardley said: “Rhys has been in Malaysia where they play at a different tempo and there are no 6’4” giants like in England.
“He is a wily centre half who knows his job rather than someone who is going to smash the centre forwards and win the headers.
“I don’t think anyone in our back four could cope with Iwelumo, and they played on that, so it was a tough afternoon for him.”
Celebrating Harry Pell's eqauliser against the Iron SP73011
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