Ian Allinson’s felt the timing of Brentford’s second goal was crucial after the League One side progressed through to the second round of the FA Cup with a 2-0 victory at Boreham Wood this afternoon.

The Blue Square Bet South outfit had looked likely to be trailing to just Clayton Donaldson’s goal at the interval but a fine finish from Harry Forrester ensured the League One side were firmly in the driving seat at the interval.

Commenting on the defeat, the Wood boss said: “[I'm] disappointed obviously to lose the game but I felt, certainly the first 45 minutes, we gave a real good account of ourselves.

“We were probably a little bit unfortunate to go in 2-0 down but I felt the goal in the 44th minute took a little bit of sting out of performance, especially in the second half and they showed what a good side they are and obviously have some very, very good players and in the end they ran out quite comfortable winners."

Wood went toe-to-toe with their League One opponents in the first half but rarely looked like threatening a comeback after the break.

Asked whether he thought this was down to losing momentum caused by the second goal or tiredness, Allinson responded: “I think a little bit of both really. As I said, the 44th minute goal I felt just set us back a little bit and in the second half, I felt a little bit of tiredness came into it.

“They’re good players, their fitness is obviously better than ours because they train full-time, we’re only in part-time. But they stuck in there really well my players and the goalkeeper’s made two or three good saves in the second half.

“But it would have been interesting if in the first half one or two of our chances had gone in. Richard Lee’s made probably two or three good saves, he was probably the busier keeper in the first half but I’m proud of the boys. They’ve done great. They’ve had a great run so far, they’ve done great in the league and now we’ve got to continue that now we’re back out of the FA Cup.”

While the Brentford keeper made a superb save to keep out an Omer Riza header, Wood can also claim they were unfortunate not to equalise in the opening period when a Riza shot hit the crossbar.

“If that ends up in the top corner we’re back at 1-1 but I was really pleased because we started off well for 20 minutes, once they got the first goal the next 20 minutes was really good and we came back into it,” Allinson said. “I felt we bossed it until they got the second goal but it was a quality goal. I felt we gave the ball away cheaply but the movement and passing around the edge of our 18-yard box and he finished it really well.”