McLaughlin: Massive point ends away agony

Town had lost their previous three away games in League One 2-1 – at Millwall, Bristol Rovers and Port Vale – and it looked like being the same again on Saturday until the wing-back’s stoppage-time strike.

As at Rovers and Vale, Town opened the scoring in London but they fell behind to second-half strikes by Tom Elliott and Dean Parrett.

McLaughlin’s last-gasp header rescued a point and continued a fine month for the Northern Ireland defender, who also found the net in Town’s previous match against Shrewsbury and scored his first international goal against Azerbaijan.

And the 25-year-old says the point at Wimbledon is definitely one to build on.

McLaughlin said: “It’s massive. Our home form has been good but we’ve wanted to do better away from home, so to stop the losses away is important first of all. In the end we were unlucky to come away with just the one point.”

Both teams remain outside the play-off zone on goal difference, with Wimbledon the higher placed in seventh.

But McLaughlin said:“I thought in the first half we were the better team.

“We had some good chances and I thought we were unfortunate to only be one up at half-time.

“They came out in the second half like we knew they were going to and they put us under a little bit of pressure.

“They got the goal from the set-piece and then got a penalty, which wasn’t a penalty (awarded for a foul by Joe Davis on Elliott), but we were happy to come away with a point in the end.”