SOUTHEND United manager Phil Brown has revealed he almost brought Jack Payne on to take his side’s last gasp penalty against Stevenage.

With the play-off semi-final second leg locked level at 1-1 on Thursday night, Blues were awarded a spot-kick five minutes into stoppage time which Barry Corr fired against the crossbar.

But Payne was almost introduced to the action to take what would have been his first spot-kick, taken during a game, in his senior career.

“I really did think about bringing Jack on to take the penalty,” confirmed Brown.

“He practises them pretty much every day in training which is unusual for a player to do and it certainly did cross my mind.

“It would have been similar to the time Paul Sturrock brought Dan Bentley on in place of Paul Smith in goal for the penalty shoot out at Oxford that time.

“But if I was going to bring Jack on then I would’ve had to take on Barry off because that would’ve been the only way he would have given up taking it.

“However, in the end I decided it just would’ve been too big a decision to make at that time of the game.”

As a result, Corr took the last gasp spot-kick but Brown was unable to watch him do so.

“It was the first penalty in my life that I haven’t been able to watch,” said the Blues boss.

“Thankfully it didn’t matter in the end but I’ll definitely be watching whatever penalties we get from now on because it didn’t seem to do us any favours!”