Hakan Hayrettin’s hunch paid off as Maidstone rescued a draw before beating Billericay on penalties in the FA Trophy.

Hayrettin considered substituting Joan Luque in order to get striker Jack Barham on the pitch in the last 10 minutes.

In the end it was Roarie Deacon who made way and Luque scored the Stones’ 89th-minute equaliser at the Gallagher Stadium, taking his tally for the season to 12.

The Spanish winger, who’s surpassed 100 career goals this week, also scored in the shoot-out as Maidstone won 6-5 on penalties, with Tom Hadler making the winning save.

“He was frustrating for me today, Luque,” said Stones boss Hayrettin.

“Sometimes he’s unbelievably good for us, today he frustrated me a little bit but I made a decision to take Roarie off and leave him on because I thought maybe (he might score).

“Roarie did ever so well today, I just had to make that decision.

“It’s not like you’re clutching at straws but you’re not winning so you’ve got to change it and I’m happy for Tom.”

Maidstone dominated a struggling Billericay side who sat on an early lead given to them by Norman Wabo.

United kept knocking on the door against the visitors’ five-man defence and finally got their rewards.

Hayrettin said: “They got their goal and they sat back, they didn’t really attack us in the second half and they didn’t really attack us in the first half but fair play to them, he got the tactics right and we had to work hard.

“Listen, sometimes it’s going to be like that, we’ll take that.

“You’ve got to give them credit for defending, I thought Chambers was excellent, I thought all their back three, their midfield worked hard.

“For whatever reason our away form is better than our home form but we want to give these people something to cheer about, we're in the next round of the Trophy, which is vitally important to me.

“However we won, we won, I’m just happy for the boys, for the club, for the supporters.

“They’re getting into a little bit of a rhythm now.”

Hayrettin twice won the FA Trophy in the early 1990s with Wycombe and was desperate to avoid falling at the first hurdle with Maidstone this season.

He’d been reminiscing about his Wembley visits before the game.

“I was lucky,” he said. “I’ve been very fortunate to be there twice and I was showing some of the people the pictures of me on the turf. I’m a lucky boy.

“We were talking about it. Who expected Hornchurch to get there last year? It shows what can be done.

“More importantly for us at the moment, it’s a continuation of what we’re doing - that’s four games unbeaten.”