Glyn Hodges was delighted that his side managed to keep a clean sheet against Gillingham today - and he praised his players for their resilience.
The Dons were forced to defend for long spells to deny Gillingham and a hard-earned victory came thanks to a first-half winner from Scott Wagstaff.
Speaking in his post-match interview, Glyn said: “It means everything, you can see the reaction from the fans and the players afterwards. It wasn’t the most attractive game you’ve ever seen, but you get the points and you keep a clean sheet, so we will take that. We are delighted.
“We’ve got a young team and some of the players have never come up against anything like that: a strong, organised, fit side who don’t give you a minute. They keep the tempo high and they are going to put you under pressure. They came into it full of confidence after their midweek win against Sunderland. It was something new for some of our boys, but they stood up to it.
"You can explain to them what’s going to happen and how it’s going to be, but unless you taste it and see it for yourself you are never going to know. The pleasing thing was that we stood up to it and we got the win. If it comes again, they know they’ve got the confidence to deal with it. Getting to half-time 1-0 up was key and we were not going to go away. I think we dealt with their pressure better in the second-half.”
Glyn saluted the quality of Wimbledon's winner and he was pleased with the contributions of experienced trio Callum Reilly, Luke O'Neill and Scott Wagstaff, who scored the all-important goal.
“We try to get our wing-backs up and play high, we work on that. The overload happened for the goal, but we probably didn’t do it as much because of the pressure they put us under. It was a difficult game, but when we had the time we picked the right pass out and the ball ended up in the back of the net, so that was pleasing as well.
“I knew that Callum, Luke, and Waggy would be up for it against their former club and I think they all played fantastically well. You could see what it meant to them and when you come up against one of your old clubs you want to show them what they are missing. You are always going to get a response and I thought they drove the team on.”