MK Dons’ caretaker Head Coach Dean Lewington saw positives and negatives from his experience in charge against Doncaster.

Lewington spoke after a busy 1-1 draw against Doncaster, which saw Ellis Harrison put his side in front after Doncaster’s Harry Clifton was sent off, before Harrison himself was sent off and the visitor’s Tom Anderson levelled late on.

The Dons’ captain was in charge after the loss of Mike Williamson, who left in midweek to take the job with Carlisle United.

Speaking after the game, Lewington reflected that the game was a challenging one as Doncaster’s early red card made the test a difficult one, and he felt the team’s resilience was something to work on.

He said, “I did enjoy it. It started raining a bit, which was annoying! But it was good. It was a strange one. The red card sort of changed the flow and tactical side of things. It changed what we worked on because against eleven, you want to go into certain areas and when they go to ten, they don’t come out and do the stuff you want them to do. We didn’t react great to the red card and when confidence is low, you felt that air around the place when it came. It’s something we need to work on and we need to be a bit more resilient.”

Lewington also praised the work of his team in the movement in making the goal happen.

He said, “That final third, you don’t score goals if it’s laboured. You have to be quick and dynamic in what you want to do, and we worked on it on Friday. It was a great goal. We’ve got players who can do that.

“We spoke about trying to maximise what we’ve got and make teams defend, and it was good goal. But in the second half, we just sort of lost that impetus.”

The Dons’ stand-in boss also mused that the players had been informed not to get into a situation that could lead to a red card, only to fall into the situation where they saw a player dismissed.

He said, “We even said at half-time that two Doncaster free-kicks were pretty soft with yellow cards and we said he’ll do this stuff so just be careful. How we got there was disappointing. Maybe 5-10 years ago, it’s a great tackle and everyone gets on with it, but times change and it’s just one of those.”

Despite that, Lewington said that he felt that he saw encouraging signs with basic attitudes in line with what he wanted and that there was something to work with going forward.

He said, “I said before the game I wanted to see a bit of fight and attitude and we got that. Everything else we can improve upon but that’s the base mark for the team – we go out and have a go and I felt we did that.”