Millington bemoans key refereeing decisions after Shaymen lose at Ebbsfleet in FA Cup

Rakish Bingham scored the winner after the sides had gone in level at the break, with Jamie Cooke cancelling out Toby Edser's opener, with Jack Senior seeing red for The Shaymen.

"Disappointed to go out of the cup," said Millington.

"We knew they were a good side, they're an excellent outfit, they're a National League team in waiting, they're a National League quality side.

"We know how good they are, but there's a couple of decisions that have really undermined the integrity of the game, and ultimately led to us going out.

"We've been left very little opportunity to do anything about it."

When asked what those decisions were, Millington said: "When they scored the second goal the referee gave a corner when it was blatant and clear to see it had gone out off an Ebbsfleet player - Sam saved it, it ricocheted, hit an Ebbsfleet player and went out.

"And then they go a score in that phase.

"Jack Senior was given a yellow card in the first-half for an excellent tackle, which was never a foul, he won the ball, he won it well and cleanly, and I said to the referee at half-time I couldn't comprehend why it was a yellow card.

"The second one is clearly a yellow card but the ref's given himself nowhere to go because he's penalised Jack for what is an excellent tackle."

When asked if, those two decision aside, he felt it was a fair result, the Halifax boss said: "It is given those two decisions, but ultimately we're up against a very strong team and we're down to ten men in the FA Cup.

"So the result is a reflection of the decisions, it isn't a reflection of the lads' effort and application.

"We knew we could hurt them, we knew they'd be wide open and as the game went on they'd become more open, and we knew we'd get opportunities later in the game.

"But we expected to have 11 men on the pitch and we didn't through no fault of our own."

Millington felt Senior's dismissal was the turning point of the tie.

"Yeah because we expected the last 20 minutes to be ours, that's what we were expecting to happen," he said.

"We know they tire, we know they become more and more expansive and we knew we had energy to come off the bench in the shape of Milli Alli and Angelo Capello, who would stretch them and be able to hurt them with their pace.

"But we weren't afforded that opportunity because of the way the decisions went."

The result sees Halifax again go out of a cup competition with defeat to a lower-league side.

"It doesn't matter who you go out to when you go out in that manner, when your hands are tied behind your back, that's the disappointing aspect to it," Millington said.

"If it was a level playing field and we were afforded the same opportunity Ebbsfleet have been in terms of being left with 11 men, then you take your medicine and you've just got to swallow it.

"But in this case, it's a lot harder to swallow given that there was a lot against us - a large amount of injuries as a lag from poor decisions last Saturday where people have been stamped on, kicked and put at risk of harm and haven't been able to play today, including Luke Summerfield, who's just managed to get himself fit enough to be on the bench.

"When you're missing the likes of Jesse Debrah, Festus Arthur, Jordan Slew, Luke Summerfield, most as a result of poor decisions against Oldham and then the referee goes and influences this game, it's a bitter pill to swallow."

Millington switched systems and deployed a 3-5-2 formation in the game.

"How it worked and why we did it, we've got to accommodate lads coming in like Jamie Stott, who hasn't had a lot of minutes recently, neither has Tom Clarke, Harvey Gilmour hasn't had a start in a while, Rob Harker hasn't started for a few games," he said.

"We've got to think about that, and the build-up of having the Dorking game cancelled has hamstrung us because that was another opportunity for us to give lads minutes in preparation for this game.

"It's hugely disappointing to go out of the cup but especially in the sense that you feel like everything's gone against us this week and the things that are out of our control, ie the weather at The Shay and the refereeing decisions last week and this week, it makes it infuriating."

Millington added: "The lads have put in a shift today, Harvey Gilmour's been excellent out of position, Jamie Stott's acquitted himself well, the midfield lads have been tireless in their energy and their work-rate.

"So the players have certainly not lacked effort, so they can go home at least taking some consolation in that they've given it everything they had and sometimes we've just got to accept that officials are human and are going to make mistakes.

"The officials weren't malicious, they behaved in a professional manner, it's just they got some decisions wrong and that's undermined our ability to progress.

"It's incredibly frustrating, we wanted a good cup run and the opportunity to do that has been taken away from us by circumstances outside of our control."