Hatters boss Richard Money was pleased with the way his side acquitted themselves despite going down to a single goal to League One Southampton at St Mary's in the third round of the FA Cup.

A stirring second half show was not enough to earn a replay which the Town manager believed his side deserved.

"Overall I'm pleased," he said. "We feel that we'd done enough to earn another crack at them at Kenilworth Road.

"We've missed four or five good chances but we've played well against a good side and not been disgraced.

"We have given a good account of ourselves in the FA Cup this year but obviously we are disappointed s we genuinely believe we have done enough to earn a replay."

However it was the decision by referee Gavin Ward to award the Saints a soft free-kick from which striker Richie Lambert scored the winning goal that frustrated the Town chief the most.

He said: "It was a very, very poor decision by the referee but it goes to show how marginal things are in football.

"I thought the ref had a good game so it's unfortunate that it's ultimately cost us. You knew as soon as he [Lambert] stepped up that it was going to go in. That's just sometimes the way it is.

"However I thought we gave it a real go after half-time but I'm little disappointed with the way we ended the game because the last 10 minutes faded out."

The Hatters' boss revealed that Keith Keane missed the tie due to illness and explained his reasoning for withdrawing Kevin Nicholls and Kevin Gallen at the interval.

"We took both Kevins off because we thought we needed more pace, energy and directness. We gave it a good go but we couldn't find the goal we needed

"I thought in the first half we looked just as dangerous but we failed to pick the right pass at the right time.

"We discussed how we were going to play beforehand having had them watched and felt we needed to keep it tight inthe first half.

"We had hoped to make those changes later in the game but the goal changed that and that's why we brought on Mark Nwokeji and Claude Gnakpa on at half-time."

Debutant Adam Watkins also earned praise from his manager after the self-confessed Luton fan came on to make his senior bow after coming on as a 73rd-minute substitute.

He said: "We were forced to name three young lads on the bench but I had been impressed with some of the things Adam had been doing in training and thought he could go and get us a goal.

"I said to him yesterday it's the romance of the FA Cup for a you to come on and score on your debut and I had that premonition when he came on. Sadly it was wrong, but he did well."

With no more cup fixtures to play, Money is now hoping his side can focus on their number one priority: promotion back to the Football League.

"It's an old cliché but we can now push on in the league," he said, "We're in a reasonable position but a change in the weather would be good start!

"We're in good form, we're playing well and have games in hand.

"We need to get ahead of steam and with players coming back from injury and with the transfer window now open, who knows what will happen."

Of the 18,000-plus crowd that was inside St Mary's, over 3,000 had made the journey from Bedfordshire.

And the Town boss had one word to describe the tremendous backing his side received throughout the 90 minutes.

"Phenomenal."