Eastleigh boss Martin Allen declined to discuss his Brentford return after his players booked their place in the FA Cup third round.

Allen, who was Brentford’s manager from 2004-06, will be back at Griffin Park in the FA Cup third round after his players won last night’s replay at Conference North outfit FC Halifax Town.

He said: “I won’t discuss that, tonight’s all about the players and the supporters who made a long trip up here.

“What happened to me there is in my history and that’s for me and my family. They know who I’m talking about.

“That will be special one day but that’s for another day. I won’t get sidetracked by that, my thoughts and feelings will stay private.

“It’s special to my family but that’s where it will stay.”

First-half goals from Scott Wilson and Mikael Mandron ensured a 2-0 win at The Shay, following a 3-3 draw at the Silverlake Stadium nine days earlier.

“We were much better, but there’s certainly still room for improvement,” continued Allen. “Keeping clean sheets is a skill.

“We’ve been working hard on that on the training pitch but, as I say, there’s still a lot of work to do. “It was a very disciplined performance and I was very pleased with the second half.

“It’s good for the strikers to score goals but it’s also their job to defend from the front and there’s certainly room for improvement there too.

“But the players deserve credit, they did a really good job. We all knew this was a difficult game.”

Allen said he did not see the incident that led to the sending off of Halifax’s Scott Garner, while the home side’s manager, Billy Heath, fumed at the decision to award Eastleigh the penalty from which Mandron doubled the lead.

This was billed as FC Halifax’s biggest game since they were reformed in 2008. The club last reached the FA Cup third round in its former guise back in 1989.

“They’ve got some decent players but we managed to stifle them,” continued Allen, who is now looking forward to his first National League match as Eastleigh boss, at Southport on Saturday.

“There’s no room for celebration, we’ve got 23 games to go and now we go to the real business which starts away on Saturday.”