Ipswich lost the fifth round tie on penalties after extra-time had finished 1-1.
“It was a tough game,” Townsend said. “I thought we did well in parts and there’s parts we think we can do better on. We’ve come to a very good Forest team and limited them to not many opportunities and taken them all the way.
“Penalties is one of them, sometimes they go for you and sometimes they don’t. A lot of the lads in there can be proud of their efforts, a lot of us haven’t played or played regularly. It was a much-changed team and they had pretty much a full-strength team out.
“That’s what the gaffer always goes on about with the strength of the squad and what we do together. We’re all in it together and it didn’t fall our way tonight.
“In cup ties there’s no worse way to go out than penalties, you probably don’t deserve to lose the game and they’d say the same. It was a very even tie, we caused them problems and I felt we limited them to not many chances.
“We’ve got to take the positives from this – the short cup run that we’ve been on has been positive, especially for the lads that haven’t played. It gives the squad minutes to make sure everyone’s ready if needed to be called upon.
“Hopefully we can use that for the last 11 games and push on. It’s nowhere near done, as a squad we need to stick together.
“We can be proud of what we’ve done tonight, the main thing is using it so that for the last 11 games we give it a right go and don’t leave this season with any regrets.”