Maynard happy to put difficult 2011-12 ND1 campaign behind..

PHIL Maynard admits he will be happy to consign the 2011-12 National One campaign to the history books and start building for next season.

Coventry completed their league programme with a depressing 44-0 whitewash at  Cinderford last Saturday and in doing so slumped to 13th in the league.

That compared unfavourably with last season’s achievement of eighth, although  statistically it is possible to argue the case either for or against the current  season having been one of development or regression.

Coventry won 13 games this term, as opposed to 12 last and saw their average  attendances break the four-figure barrier.

However, what is undisputable is the fact Coventry’s good start to the  campaign was derailed by a punitive injury situation as key players Luke Myring,  Jamie Miller and Alex Nash didn’t even make it until the midway point.

With the loss of last season’s leading scorers Tom Harris and Jeff Gregson  for virtually the whole year Cov also lacked their previous potency out  wide.

“We started off with great promise of where we aspired to be, which is the  top five of this division and a clear staging post for us to go forward,” said  rugby director Maynard.

“And we were on target to achieve that as we lost just twice in the first  couple of months. Then a month or so before Christmas our injury curse started  and refused to abate right through to the final weekend.

“You cannot cater for the fact we needed to use 47 players throughout the  season. Where are you going to find that many and still win regularly in this  league?”

Maynard concedes that the scale and variety of the club’s fitness issues left  his coaching team at a loss in the search for answers – and that they found it  so alarming they were forced to bring in reinforcements like Will Hafu, Khrist  Kopetzky and Callum MacBurnie.

“The trouble was there was not one particular type of injury. If they had  been all shin splints or something like that we could have picked up on a  pattern and altered what we were doing. But we had all sorts from knee ligaments  to broken necks and the physios, coaches and players were all scratching their  heads.

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