"There's been an awful lot of decisions today we don't understand" - Millington says Town were denied two clear penalties in defeat at Hartlepool

Former Halifax striker Mani Dieseruvwe scored the winner from the spot, but Millington said his team should have been awarded two spot-kicks of their own after Hartlepool's goal.

"It probably was," said the Town boss when asked if he thought Hartlepool's penalty was the correct decision, "but then we should have had two penalties, we've had Adan George pulled back, clearly pulled back, everyone in the stadium can see it and the referee's on the spot but has decided not to give it.

"And then there's been a handball in the box late on which we've seen back, they're clear, stonewall penalties, we don't understand why.

"There's been an awful lot of decisions today we don't understand. Every time Hartlepool players went to ground they get a free-kick - we're honest, we stand up, we try and contest possession and when we go down, we go down under significant pressure and yet we're not getting the decisions.

"So I've got a lot of questions for the officials."

Millington was disappointed his team was unable to follow up their fantastic win against Chesterfield last time out.

"We highlighted the fact that no team has beaten Chesterfield this season and then backed it up with a win, we wanted to buck that trend," he said.

"And pretty much every team that's been beaten by six or seven has then backed it up with a clean sheet and a draw or a win, so we wanted to buck that rend as well by imposing another defeat on Hartlepool.

"But they both went to form because we couldn't back up a win against Chesterfield with a win today and they were a much different team to the one that faced Gateshead on Tuesday night."

Millington said his team were below-par in the first-half.

"I think we started poor, we were second-best to a lot of things," he said.

"I don't think they (Hartlepool) were great but I thought we weren't great either.

"Kevin Phillips highlighted in his pre-match how difficult it can be when you go a long period without a game and us missing the Ebbsfleet game last week, we looked like a team who'd had a bit of a lay-off and it took us 45 minutes to blow the cobwebs off.

"I don't think that helped and then I don't think either team have really done a great deal to win the game.

"The officials have had a real poor performance and ultimately decided the result."

When asked if an off day can be forgiven after Halifax's excellent recent form, Millington said: "Yeah, always. I don't think it's any lack of effort, you're not looking across the pitch going 'these lads aren't giving it their all', they're having a right good go.

"But today we just weren't as good as we should be.

"I think there are mitigating circumstances but sat her, immediately after the game, I feel it doesn't matter what we'd have done, it was always going to be very difficult for us to win that game because of the way the referee officiated the game."

Winger Andrew Oluwabori started on the bench but came on in the second-half.

"Without going into too much detail, it was the right thing to do for this game," Millington said of the decision not to start him.