The Greenock men had been awarded just three spot-kicks this season prior to Saturday’s match at Glebe Park, all of which had been taken by Declan McManus.

Aberdeen loanee McManus made no mistake when he opened the scoring in a 4-0 win over Stranraer back in August after he himself was fouled by Blues keeper David Mitchell.

And he was clinical at Cappielow on 13 December when he fired an injury-time penalty into the roof of the net to claim a 2-2 draw with Brechin.

Although he saw his most recent effort saved by stand-in goalkeeper Lewis Coult to deny him a hat-trick at Stirling in the last game of 2014, Duffy insisted that miss had no bearing on his decision.

The Ton boss revealed that the call was made after watching McManus, Caldwell, Joe McKee and Ross Forbes practice spot-kicks at training on Friday. And former Hibs and St Mirren frontman Caldwell confidently converted from 12 yards in the 54th minute of Saturday’s 1-1 draw to fully justify his manager’s faith.

Duffy told the Tele: “I don’t do it all the time but I picked Ross [Caldwell] to take any penalties at Brechin after we did some on the Friday.

“The fact that Declan missed his last one had absolutely no bearing on the decision. He scored one against Brechin in the last minute at Cappielow before that.

“What we actually did was, while doing set-pieces, I decided I would take four players out and do penalties with them because we’ve brought in new players recently.

“It was Ross, Joe [McKee], Ross Forbes, and Declan. They took four penalties each, and to be fair they all looked pretty decent at them, but you just make the call.

“I made a conscious decision before the game that it would he Ross Caldwell. I’m glad I did because I don’t want players fighting over the ball.

“I’m pretty sure Declan would’ve grabbed the ball — and I don’t have a problem with that either — but at the end of the day I made the call before the game.

“Thankfully, it was a decision I got right, and we’ll see what happens in the next game.” McManus admitted he would have had no problem stepping up despite his miss against the Binos but supported his manager’s decision to select Caldwell.

He said: “I would have liked to have hit it, but the gaffer said Ross before the start of the game and that was fine by me.”