AFC Wimbledon let a lead slip once again on Saturday afternoon as a ruthless Mansfield Town side came away with a 3-1 win.
In what felt like a carbon copy of the start we saw on Tuesday, Ali Al-Hamadi gave us the lead with his fifth goal in yellow and blue.
However our Achilles heel came back to bite us as Riley Harbottle quickly equalised after we switched off from a set piece.
From that point onwards it went from bad to worse for the Dons, with Danny Johnson and Davis Keillor-Dunn striking a double blow on the counterattack for the play-off chasing Stags.
Johnnie Jackson made two changes to the side which lost 3-2 to Stevenage as Jack Currie and Alex Pearce came in for Lee Brown and Will Nightingale - this meant the latter dropped to the bench.
Wimbledon started well with Currie and Ethan Chislett interchanging on the left before the latter saw a shot blocked. Our South African attacker then came even closer as his volley whistled wide of the upright.
As the half hour mark approached we were rewarded for our bright start with the opening goal. Al-Hamadi picked up the ball on the far side before tearing into the box – our number 12 steadied himself before powerfully firing past Scott Flinders for his fifth goal in four games.
However Mansfield equalised soon after through Harbottle’s close range finish – with our side guilty of losing runners in the penalty area. The Dons almost hit back immediately as Armani Little’s free-kick cleared the bar by inches.
The second-half started slower than the first, with much of the flow of the game being disrupted by several stoppages. Al-Hamadi was still posing a threat and almost came up with an assist as Kasey McAteer saw his shot blocked from close range.
The Stags always offered a threat on the counterattack and as a result it was them who took the lead for the first time on the day. A through ball was threaded through the Wimbledon backline, leaving Johnson with the simple task of poking past the onrushing Nik Tzanev.
A flurry of substitutes followed for the Dons, however it mattered little as Keillor-Dunn charged through to put the visitors 3-1 ahead - a deficit that we couldn’t recover from.
AFC Wimbledon: Nik Tzanev, Chris Gunter (George Marsh), Alex Woodyard, Josh Davison (Sam Pearson), Ethan Chislett, Ali Al-Hamadi, Alex Pearce (Aaron Pierre), Armani Little, Kasey McAteer (Saikou Janneh), Jack Currie, Paul Kalambayi
PIC: Ian Stephen (Pro Sports Images)