"We've got to be better with the ball," says Millington ahead of Saturday's home game with Dorking

The Shaymen recovered from Luke Summerfield's controversial red card to salvage a 1-1 draw against Southend United thanks to Adam Senior's equaliser.

But that was after a poor first-half performance in which Town failed to have a shot on or off target.

Halifax have produced a mixed bag of performances at The Shay so far this season and have drawn their last three home games after beating Bromley on the opening day of the season.

When asked if his side has to play better to stand a chance of beating Dorking on Saturday, Millington told the Courier: "I don't know if we have to, we want for sure, we want to play better.

"I don't think we'll ever be completely satisfied with how we play but I think when you measure the narrative of the game against Southend, we've got to credit the lads for what they did well because there were certain things that went against them.

"We want to play better but we certainly wouldn't be having any complaints about the lads' approach against Southend given the way they faced the adversity.

"Considering the response to us having not beaten Gateshead when Gateshead went down to ten men, the lads deserve an awful lot of credit when we've gone down to ten men, they've managed to claw themselves back in to get a point out of the game against very strong opposition.

"So as much as we were disappointed not to beat the ten men of Gateshead we should be absolutely over the moon with how the lads managed to get a point from the position they were in against Southend."

Millington says his side must do better in possession on Saturday.

"We've got the ability, we've got the lads with the technical ability to play well with the ball," he said.

"We work so hard out of possession that we can't afford to turn the ball over like we were doing against Southend.

"Our desire is to be a forward-thinking team so when we do regain it we want to be forward-thinking, we want to break lines, we want to get up the pitch quickly.

"That can't be at a cost of conceding possession so quickly and so regularly, we've got to make sure we've got good possession and start to break lines from a more solid base.

"That's been the focus so far in training this week."

Town have been outplayed at home this season by Southend and Gateshead, and struggled badly in the second-half against Oxford City.

When asked if he felt Town had been on the front-foot and attacking enough so far this season at home, Millington said: "We've got to be better with the ball. Away from home, as much as at home, we want to move the ball better, we want to be a better possession-based team, but we're really working hard to strike that balance between being a team like Gateshead, a team like Altrincham, a team like Rochdale, who have a massive number of lateral and backwards passes and dominate possession, but don't really hurt teams as much as the possession suggests they should.

"We want to get that balance right where we have good possession but we're also hurting teams with that possession.

"It's not an easy balance to strike but that's what we're working towards."

Halifax are fifth in the National League going into Saturday's game, while Dorking are 21st, having won just once so far this season.

"They're much the same as they were last season in terms of how they play, very brave in possession, they want to play, they want to isolate players in one v one situations," Millington said on Dorking.

"On their day they can hurt any team in the National League, they got a good result away at Oldham on Saturday and no doubt they'll be looking to build on that coming to The Shay."

On paper at least, Saturday seems to offer Town a good chance to register three points ahead of two difficult away games against top two Barnet and Chesterfield.

"We've had tough away games already this season and they've worked out mostly well so we're not too worried about where we go and who we play," Millington said.

"But all the focus at the moment is about doing whatever we can to beat Dorking, and we've got no interest in looking beyond that at the moment.

"Every game is an opportunity to get three points on the board.

"We've not approached a single game this season to try and get a point, we've looked at going into every game to try and get three points.

"We know how we need to improve to be securing three points more often and that's the focus at the minute.

"We go into Dorking wanting and trying everything we can to win the game."