Regular season goes 'out of the window' - Maynard

Stuart Maynard is in his first full season in charge of Notts County

Head coach Stuart Maynard says Notts County will treat their play-off semi-final tie as a fresh start after their regular season ended with the sound of boos.

The Magpies were jeered by sections of the Meadow Lane crowd after they were beaten by Doncaster Rovers last week.

The Magpies went into the final day needing to win and for results to go in their favour if they were to snatch an automatic promotion spot.

Instead, Doncaster clinched the League Two title and lifted the trophy inside Notts' stadium.

What was Notts' third successive home loss also saw the East Midlands club slip to sixth in the table to set up a two-legged semi-final play-off tie with AFC Wimbledon.

When asked about the boos from the stands that followed the full-time whistle, Maynard said, "we all feel the frustration".

"You want to get promoted, you want that feeling at the end of the season and when you are so close if can become even more frustrating," the Magpies boss told BBC Radio Nottingham.

"We all wanted to have that hope going into the last game, which we had. The odds were stacked against us and we knew we needed to take care of our own business.

"But the other teams also won around us, so we could have been even more deflated if we won the game and then potentially not got automatic promotion.

"So we have to look at it in a positive way in the sense that it is frustrating."

Notts County have been among the promotion contenders throughout the season, although an underwhelming run of form to end the campaign meant they never spent any time in the top three after mid-February.

They lost four of their last six matches of the campaign, and at home they managed just one win in their past seven games.

Maynard says they are not results that will be dwelled on, with "everything now going out the window" for the play-offs.

"Everything that has happened in the season is now gone," he added.

"We now have Wimbledon and home and away and that is what we have to be solely focused on.

"It's a different mentality that you go in with."