Dons boss Tisdale praises both sides after entertaining draw with Mansfield

The sides boast the division's meanest defences and both were only pierced on the day by spectacular 25-yard blasts in a game of many chances.

“It was a fabulous game with sides trying to win it,” he said.

“At no point in the game did we think we'd take a draw so am I happy? No, I wanted to win.

“But am I comfortable with the way we played? Yes, we were very competitive and it could easily have gone our way.”

On Jacob Mellis' superb 17th minute strike for the Stags, he said: “It's very hard to criticise anyone when the ball is rocketed in from 25 yards.

“Maybe should have cleared it a bit better from the original clearance.

“But it was a windy day and I thought our players did extremely well to tidy the play and we certainly managed to play good football, despite the conditions. “So I am really proud of them. I liked the way we played and we did enough to score a second.

“But they also worked really hard for their point too. I am not belittling the effort Mansfield put in and how hard they tried to win the game too.”

Jordan Houghton then blasted in an equally spectacular equaliser on 24 minutes and Tisdale said: “I don't think he will be up there in those sort of positions that often. But his game is developing and when you get the opportunity he is a safe pair of hands when it comes to striking a ball. It was a sweet strike and a lovely goal.”

He added: “It's a small pitch, the wind was really strong, the pitch was bouncy and the referee let a challenge or two go.

“It needed a lot of courage to bring the ball down and play. We showed that and made it into a football match. That was how we were going to win it.

“It didn't work out like that but it was a strong defensive display.”