Everything here describes the app exactly as it works today. Start with the rotations walkthrough — it's the part with the most moving pieces.
FootyLens runs in your browser — nothing to download from an app store. For the best experience, add it to your home screen (your browser's share or menu button → Add to Home Screen). Installed, it opens full-screen and works offline at the ground.
Signing in with your email switches on cloud backup and cross-device sync. You'll be emailed a one-time code — no password to remember. You can use the app without signing in, but your data then lives only on that one device.
Add a team, then build the squad: first name, nickname, jersey number. Positions are optional — but picking one auto-sets the player's line, which the rotations system uses everywhere.
Rotations has three layers: lines (who plays where), an optional plan (who rotates first, and how long a stint should be), and the live queue that suggests swaps during the game. Set up in that order.
On the squad screen, each player has a BACK MID RUCK FWD control. One line per player: backs are blue, mids gold, rucks purple, forwards red — the same colours follow the player through every screen.
Rucks are their own rotation pool: the queue only ever swaps rucks with rucks. Picking the Ruck position automatically sets the ruck line.
Tap Rotation plan (order & cadence) on the rotations setup screen — or the Rotation plan button on the live screen itself, handy when you've opened a prepared game. For each line:
The plan saves as you go, stays with the squad week to week, and syncs to your other devices. Changes count for the game in front of you right up until its clock first starts; after that the running game keeps the plan it started with, and your edits apply from the next game.
Pick the players, set the quarter length, and tap Start Rotations. Everyone begins on the bench — drag your starters on (grid, list or field view, whichever you prefer). In the field view, dragging a player into the back, middle or forward third sets their line automatically — except rucks, who keep their purple wherever they stand.
Once a plan exists and the clock is running, a suggestion bar appears above the board whenever someone is due (or nearly due) to come off — one row per line, for example: MIDS · OFF #7 Riley 0:41 over → ON #12 Harper · Swap.
No suggestions showing? That's normal when: there's no plan for this team, nobody is near their target yet, the line's bench is empty or still resting, or a line has only one player.
Setting a player to Disc starts a cumulative sin-bin timer that runs on game time — it pauses at breaks and carries across quarters, so you're always looking at total time served. First Aid works the same way as a status; neither is ever suggested back on by the queue.
Finish the session and it backs up automatically. You get a full game-time report — every player's minutes, percentage of match, and the equity spread — shareable as an image. If a stats match exists for the same team on the same day, the game-time block appears inside that match summary too.
In the Drill Library, create a session and add drills to it from any tab — including your own. Open the session to set the date, start time, location, team and notes, give any drill a minutes override or a coach note, and reorder freely. Then Print / PDF produces a professional session plan: a running schedule with clock times, a detailed block per drill with its diagram, an equipment checklist and your notes — save it as a PDF or print it for the clipboard.
Signed in, the app syncs whenever it realistically can: when you open or return to it, when a match or rotation session finishes, shortly after edits, and the moment a connection comes back after a dropout. There's a manual sync button too, but you shouldn't need it.
Browsers can clear locally stored data after long periods of inactivity — the cloud copy is your safety net over the off-season. Sign in, let it sync, and your records are safe.
Sharing a team or match grants access to an email address — FootyLens does not send them an email. After you create the share, the app shows you a ready-made invitation to send yourself (share sheet or copy). The moment that person signs in to FootyLens with the invited address, the shared team or match appears in their account — nothing to accept.
Yes — that's the design. Stat capture, rotations, the whiteboard and the drill library all work fully offline. Anything recorded offline syncs automatically when a connection returns.
Any modern browser on a tablet or phone runs FootyLens — there's no app store and no Apple requirement. Development and testing have centred on iPad, so that's the most polished experience today; Android works via Chrome, with a formal test pass on the roadmap.
Four common reasons: no rotation plan exists for this team (the plan is the on-switch); nobody is close to their target stint yet; everyone on that line's bench is in First Aid, the sin bin, or still having their breather; or the line only has one player. The queue would rather stay silent than guess.
Deliberate. The field's three zones map to back, mid and forward, so a zone drag can't express "ruck" — and silently turning your ruck into a mid would corrupt the rotation pools. Change a ruck's line from the squad screen, the grid columns, or the player's status sheet.
Correct — no email is sent. Sharing grants access to their address inside FootyLens; the dialog that appears after sharing gives you the invitation to send them yourself. Once they sign in with that address, the share appears automatically.
The record you're deleting has never synced to the cloud, so there is no copy anywhere else — deleting it is unrecoverable. Sync first if you want a safety net.
Yes — sign in with the same email on both. Matches, rotations, squads, plans, boards and drills all sync. Player names are encrypted on your device before they upload.
That question gets its own document — read the privacy statement. The short version: local-first, encrypted names in the synced squad data, parents receive static images rather than hosted links, and no accounts for children.
Tell the coach who built it. FootyLens is in Beta and feedback from the sideline is what drives every release.