Terry Brown hailed his team’s refusal to mope following their FA Trophy disappointment last weekend.

Wimbledon leapt back into the top five after racing out of the starting blocks against relegation-haunted Forest Green this afternoon.

Nathan Elder’s third goal in the Dons’ yellow and blue since signing from Shrewsbury set them on their way early on.

A minute later, impressive Will Hendry secured ninth-minute daylight between the sides.

And Brown was unmoved by a low-key last 70 minutes after putting the Trophy disaster seven days earlier to bed.

The manager slammed his “gutless” team last Saturday after a 3-2 home reversal against Workington.

But a fifth Blue Square Premier home win in a row means the Dons replace Kettering in the top five after the Poppies’ defeat to York City. Fourth place Mansfield were meanwhile shocked at home to lowly Gateshead.

Brown said: “It has been a good day, there’s little doubt about that.

“You do look for those certain Saturdays in a season, but perhaps it’s a bit too early to consider this one of those weekends.

“It’s been a difficult week for us. We’ve been licking our wounds after losing to Workington but we’ve bounced back strongly and we showed character.

“We started the game superbly, with a real passion. We couldn’t maintain that level for a number of reasons.

“Losing Brett Johnson for ten minutes when he was elbowed lost us our rhythm. We didn’t really rediscover that, but it’s another clean sheet and we’ve gone back to basics.

“Another plus was getting some of our senior players back. Steven Gregory was good and we’ve missed him. James Pullen also returned. I’m sure the new contract Seb Brown signed on Thursday made up for him not playing today!”

Danny Kedwell fired a fifth minute warning before the visitors’ defender Mark Preece had to clear off his line to stop Elder from scoring.

He couldn’t halt the striker moments later. Will Hendry’s cross was nodded in by Elder for his third goal in four games.

It was 2-0 within a minute – Ricky Wellard putting Hendry in the clear and he shot beyond Rovers keeper David Wilkinson.

Lewis Taylor soon after hit the post but the away team had their chances, too.

Reece Styche got his lob all wrong and Sam Hatton headed against his own crossbar ten minutes before half-time.

From the resulting scramble, Pullen kept Tomi Ameobi and Craig Rocastle at bay.

The second half was a non-event but Hendry, once with a headed and later with a great half-volley, came closest to adding a third.

Forest Green boss Dave Hockaday said: “OK, we may have done well for 70 minutes but even I would have shown character out there after the way we started.

“It was chaos for the first 15 minutes. We carried on from where we left off against Mansfield last weekend and it was nowhere near good enough.”