A dramatic late goal denied AFC Wimbledon a return to winning ways as Crewe Alexandra came back from 2-0 down to leave London with a share of the points.

Wimbledon had enjoyed a delightful first half thanks to their wing wonders Josh Neufville and James Tilley, who both scored fine goals to give the hosts a fantastic platform.

Crewe, through Joel Tabiner, pegged the Dons back immediately after the break, but the game seemed to be heading for a Wimbledon win until an extended period of added time culminated in Elliott Nevitt’s 90+10 minute equaliser.

Wimbledon were surely desperate not to lose another lead, but Nevitt’s strike consigned them to that fate again.

After the hosts had survived three dangerous injury time corners, including one that crossed the line but was ruled out by the officials, Nevitt burst down the left side of the box and squeezed a shot inside Alex Bass’ near post, right in front of the away support.

“It’s hard to pinpoint any one thing,” said manager Johnnie Jackson.

“Just for me the goals are disappointing, so we’ll look back at that. Probably for the last goal there’s an eagerness to go and win the ball and two of my lads go up for a header and we don’t win it.

"Certainly, there’s a real eagerness to try and see the game out and defend it but we haven’t done that today.”

For Wimbledon, Neufville’s first goal in blue and yellow, a composed conversion of a low cross, was swiftly added to by Tilley, who scored his seventh goal of the season with a shimmy of the hips and a fine, curled finish.

“We give him license and a position and a framework, the way that we play that gets the best out of him. You’ve got to try and get him on the ball and the team did that really well today,” said Jackson on his star winger.

Ali Al-Hamadi, returning to south west London after winning the King’s Cup with Iran in Thailand, starred too, and showed no signs of jet-lag as he led the Dons’ attack with energy and incisiveness.

Thanks to the front four, Plough Lane had been in high spirits all afternoon, but Tabiner’s strike just after the restart introduced nagging doubts in the stands.

Tabiner was found in complete isolation by his teammate’s deep cross, and the centre only required a simple sidefoot shot past Alex Bass, which he provided, to make it 2-1.

Defensively, Wimbledon responded well and kept Crewe from creating further chances, while the Dons’ forward line returned to full flow, with Neufville and Omar Bugiel both going close.

Jackson made changes to try and secure the result: Lee Brown for youngster Jack Currie, Harry Pell for James Ball and Aaron Sasu for Neufville, who frankly had run himself into the ground.

The changes were obviously designed to make Wimbledon more secure in defence, but they were given a hefty amount of added time to negotiate.

This finally came to a giant 14 minutes thanks to some confusion on the touchline regarding the eventual substitutions of Connor Evans and Josh Davison for Tilley and Bugiel.

This delay was exactly the opposite of what Wimbledon needed. A long and painful period followed. Plough Lane thought they had survived with a win when Crewe had a goal disallowed from a corner, but Nevitt’s eventual equaliser was all the more painful for that fact.