What were the odds on the Dons coming away from this tricky-looking encounter five goals to the good? Both sides were in form coming into the Christmas period, the visitors having won four of their last five, the hosts on the back of four successive league wins without conceding. For those expecting a keenly contested, hard-fought Boxing Day derby, this must have come as a tremendous disappointment, as the game was as good as over with 11 minutes on the clock.

Former Hayes & Yeading midfielder Will Hendry experienced some back problems during the pre-match warm-up, so Luis Cumbers stepped up to Hendry’s starting position behind the front two, and not for the first time this season AFC Wimbledon were unable to name a full complement of substitutes. The change didn’t affect the players one iota, and with just six minutes gone Wimbledon took the lead. Danny Kedwell received Brett Johnson’s chipped pass from the halfway line, turned his marker Matt Ruby with ease, touched the ball round advancing keeper Simon Overland and sidefooted it into the unguarded net.

That was not the last of Ruby’s gifts to the Dons. Just four minutes later, his weak header from a free-kick found Cumbers some 25 yards out, and the on-loan Gillingham striker threaded his drive through a sea of legs and into the bottom corner.

Hayes now had the look of a boxer caught by an early uppercut, and were struggling to clear their heads when with 17 minutes gone they found themselves 3-0 down. Jay Conroy broke up an attack near the Dons penalty area and picked out Lewis Taylor running into space near the halfway line. The Dons’ number 8 took one touch before firing an inch-perfect pass into the path of Jon Main, who took the ball in his stride, made for the touchline and without seeming to look up sent a pass across the six-yard box for the onrushing Kedwell to tap home his 16th goal of the season and send the already highly entertained and satisfied crowd into raptures.

Gary Haylock would undoubtedly have been hugely disappointed that it took the concession of three goals make his side start to play, but for the next 10 minutes it was the visitors who looked the more likely to score. Slowly but surely, James Mulley and former Crewe midfielder Justin Cochrane were coming more and more into the game, and right winger Esmond James was given the space to run at Brett Johnson. But apart from a decent effort by Steve Basham, they rarely looked like troubling the thankfully once-again underworked Seb Brown.

Two Paul Lorraine blocks, as well-timed as they were ungainly, put paid to any hopes the visitors’ Dale Binns and Basham had of testing Brown, and a fourth Dons goal on the half-hour put paid to any hopes that a goal, if indeed it did come, would be anything but scant consolation.

Lewis Taylor’s deep cross evaded the six players in the six-yard box, but Ricky Wellard’s dink back into the danger area was headed home by a surprisingly unmarked Main, and there was still the best part of a quarter of an hour left in the first half. Main had already fluffed a great chance when Ruby ducked under a high ball from Ben Judge, but with just Overland to beat he miskicked and embarrassingly shinned the ball off for a goal-kick. This tidy finish more than made up for the earlier atypical miss.

Just when Haylock was thinking that the afternoon couldn’t get any worse, it did. With three minutes of the half remaining, Cochrane launched an ugly two-footed challenge on Luis Cumbers and referee Davies, having used up his Christmas spirit when only yellow-carding Danny Allen-Page for a similarly unpleasant tackle on Kedwell, whipped out the red card and despatched the midfielder towards the tunnel.

The talk of the half-time interval was whether the Dons would come out all guns blazing in the second half or whether, game won, they’d sit back and preserve their lead and conserve the energy they’d doubtless need for Monday’s game at second-placed Stevenage and Friday’s return at Church Road. Predictably, and understandably, they took the latter approach.

Hayes & Yeading made two substitutions at half-time, with Marc Canham and former Dons loanee Scott Fitzgerald entering the fray, but four goals down and a man light, this was hardly going to be the ideal game for the two replacements to make their marks. However, the Dons seemed to take the idea of sitting on the lead a little too literally, because for the first 15 minutes of the half the home side hardly had a touch. Canham was instrumental in the visitors’ best passage of play in the game, and if James’ header had been as accurate as Binns’ cross that found him unmarked at the far post, the visiting fans would at least have had a goal to raise their dampened spirits.

Terry Brown then made some changes of his own, with Steven Gregory and Ricky Wellard making way for Kennedy Adjei and Sam Hatton. Hatton’s first two attempted passes were heavily overhit, but his third was perfectly weighted and after Main outpaced Ruby his shot was smothered well by Overland, who had been largely untroubled in the previous 20 minutes. Jay Conroy then mounted a one-man assault on the Hayes goal, three times barrelling down the right wing intent on breaking his Dons duck but only a desperate challenge from Tom Cadmore prevented the full-back from getting his shot away, Conroy’s appeals for a penalty falling on deaf ears. Binns then broke away from Lorraine and fired at Brown, but his shot cleared the bar, the roof of the Tempest End and probably the long-jump pit in the athletics stadium, summing up the visitors’ bad day at the office.

There was still time for a further Dons goal, and it came with 10 minutes left. The hapless Ruby was at fault again, leaving the ball for his keeper to clear, even though Overland had already advanced out of his box and then retreated. Main took advantage of their lack of communication, nipped between them and rounded the keeper, and although he took the ball wider than he would have wanted, he steadied himself and found the inside of the far post from the tightest of angles.

The only blot on the Dons’ copybook was Taylor’s needless booking for kicking the ball away, but when the energetic former Horsham man tugged Fitzgerald’s shirt two minutes later, referee Davies’ festive cheer returned and the second yellow card that the challenge deserved stayed in his top pocket.