"I thought the lads did a fantastic job," says Town boss Millington after victory at Solihull

Jamie Cooke's second goal in as many games was the difference, and inflicted Solihull's first home league defeat of the year thanks to a spirited Shaymen display.

"I thought it was a really controlled, disciplined, professional away performance, against a very good team," Millington said.

"We knew their strengths coming here, and their strengths are many and varied so we had a lot to contend with.

"But I thought the lads did a fantastic job out of possession, and for all of that organisation and work-rate and resilience out of possession, I thought they deserved the win."

When asked how the win had been achieved, Millington said: "We know they are heavily possession-based, we know they can slice teams open by playing through the middle of the park.

"So we overloaded the middle area with Suumers, Harvey, Kian and Cookie, and forced them to go wide.

"They tried to overload the wide areas, which we expected, and once they did that and we go them down one side of the pitch, it was every man's job to try and keep them down that one side, forcing them to try and play in-behind us, which as you saw in the second-half, they started trying to shape balls into that area where we wanted them to go to.

"We mopped it up and began to build possession rom our own half.

"The lads have done a fantastic job really in forcing Solihull to play a certain way, and that has given us an advantage because we're then in a position to predict what's going to happen, win the ball back and start to build our own passages of possession."

Town produced a far better performance than the one that saw them exit the FA Cup at Ebbsfleet on Saturday.

"Solihull do a lot of similar rotations to Ebbsfleet," said the Halifax boss.

"We dealt with controlling the centre of the pitch much better, we forced them to go wide.

"But the thing we didn't do against Ebbsfleet was, once they went wide, we didn't keep them down one side of the pitch, which we managed to do much more effectively against Solihull.

"I still believe the game would have swung in our favour in the latter stages had we maintained 11 players on the pitch against Ebbsfleet, but today we got the early goal and it made it more possible for us to retain control of the game and see it out."

On the winning goal, Millington said: "I'd credit Jamie Cooke with getting in the right position, it's a good ball from Angelo Capello and the keeper can't do a great deal with it.

"He's in a really tricky position, there's no way he can really deal with that type of cross. Jamie's done everything he can to get into the position to affect it and affect it he has."

Millington said of match-winner Cooke: "His work rate, his partnership with his other midfield players, today he's had a good number of other players around him in the centre of the pitch but their link-up play, their ability to connect two or three passes and settle us in possession has really helped us tonight.

"It's just given us that bit of secure possession whereas in some games, on the regain, we might be a little bit too impatient and want to get the ball forward too quickly.

"So having that overload in the middle of the pitch with those four has allowed us to secure possession, connect two or three passes and start to work our way up the pitch better."

Attacking midfielder Angelo Capello provided the assist for the goal, impressing in an unfamiliar left wing-back role.

"I'm dead pleased for Angelo," Millington said, "I said to him at the end that 90 per cent of what he's done today was the ugly bit of the game, the pressing, trying to win the ball back, going into challenges with bigger players, and good players.

"He's done a lot of the ugly side of the game, but Ange came through at Sheffield United playing as a wing-back, he's played there for Belize, so it's not an unfamiliar position for him..

"I think the way we wanted to play it tonight might have given him one or two things to think about early on but he's an intelligent footballer so he did pick it up very quickly."

Millington's use of a back three has come under fire from supporters this season, but the system worked perfectly in what was a textbook away performance.

"When we play that system, we want to be a 3-5-2," Millington said. "At times, we've gone out to play a 3-5-2 but have dropped into a 5-3-2, and we don't want to be a back five, that's not what we're about.

"We want to be front-foot, aggressive, pressing out of possession, so when we win it back we're aggressive in possession.

"The vital ingredient is retaining it as a back three as opposed to dropping into a back five, I think that's what made the difference tonight is the wing-backs pushed on and pressed higher, which made the system more effective."

Read more from the Town boss in Thursday's Courier and later this week on the Courier website.