SOUTHEND United manager Phil Brown felt the club's ground staff should have been awarded men of the match after securing his side's clash with Newport County went ahead on Friday night.

The Shrimpers had to settle for a 0-0 draw against the Welshmen at Roots Hall.

But Brown was amazed the game was able to go ahead following days of wet weather.

"I have no idea how we managed to get this game on and for me the man of the match award should've gone to the ground staff here because they've been superb," said Brown.

"In the build up to the match I was starting to wonder if it was going to go ahead, especially as the sunshine we had at 9am disappeared by 9.15am.

"However, the work the staff here put on meant we could play the game and finish it as well wish I was delighted about and so were Newport after such a long journey."

The persistent rain made the pitch hard to play on as the surface cut up and was difficult to pass the ball on.

But Brown insisted his players relished the conditions and that he actually enjoyed seeing a match played in such testing circumstances.

"I thought our players were relishing it out there and I loved it because both teams got stuck in and really went for it," said Brown.

"When I was walking off at the end the Newport captain said to me that he couldn't believe we were still trying to play football on a pitch like that in these conditions.

"That's what we do though and I pleased we stuck to our guns.

"Newport came here to try and frustrate us and they did that with the amount of time they took over throw ons, free-kicks and goal-kicks.

"But that's something we have to get used to here and we need to be able to deal with it from now on."

On Friday night however, the Shrimpers had to settle for a 0-0 draw against a determined Newport outfit.

And Brown was again left ruing Blues' lack of cutting edge in the final third of the pitch.

"At the moment we're just lacking that bit of composure in the final third and I've made that point to the players in the dressing room," said Brown.

"When we've had that composure we've shown against good teams like Chesterfield and Millwall what we're capable of doing in front of goal but we didn't have that here.

"In the end we also had to rely on a big let off when their player decided to demolish the roof behind the goal with a penalty so it could actually have been a lot worse.

"But we do need to start doing better in front of goal and that's something we will be working on in training this week."