Australian Rules Football Coaching Toolkit
The Australian Rules Football Coaching Toolkit is a browser-based tactics board, drill library, session planner, fitness timer and match desk for community footy coaches. The oval is drawn from geometry — a 50 m centre square, 9 m goal squares and 50 m arcs clipped to the boundary — so the markings keep their real size when you change the ground. Stoppage-to-transition playbooks, an interchange ledger and spacing measures sit beside eight original starter drills.
How to use this calculator
- Start on the Tactics tab: the board opens with an illustrative Australian Rules Football example, drawn to scale in metres. Drag tokens, or select one in the object list and move it with the arrow keys.
- Use Run, Pass, Carry and Screen to draw movement: click a token, then where it goes (for a pass, click the receiver). Set timings and an instruction in the inspector.
- Add scenes with 'Continue to new scene', and add branches for what happens when the opposition or context changes. Play a scene or the whole sequence; captions and a transcript follow along.
- Open a starter drill from the Drills tab, plan sessions (including parallel stations) on the Training tab, time fitness work on the Fitness tab and keep a match record on Match day.
- Export a PDF, SVG, PNG or .zcoach file. Exports are anonymised unless you choose to include names, notes or results.
How it works
Everything on the board is stored in real field units, not screen pixels: the board scales uniformly to fit, and rotating or zooming the view never changes a stored position. Field markings are generated from geometry, so fixed-size markings keep their size on a custom field.
A playbook is a graph of scenes joined by labelled branches. Paths move tokens at constant speed along their length; a pass carries the ball to its receiver, and a warning appears if the receiver will not be there. A loop must have a repeat limit before it can play or export.
The ground is a schematic ellipse (165 × 135 m by default, editable). Fixed markings stay in metres when the oval changes: change the length to 175 m and the goal square is still 9 m deep.
Score is 6 × goals + behinds, recorded as events so an undo is a correction you can see, not an erased line. Time on ground is the union of each player's on-field intervals in active match time, so a paused break never adds minutes.
The centre-square advisory counts players inside the 50 m square against the limit you set per team. It warns; it never stops you moving a player.
Your work saves automatically in this browser about half a second after each change, with undo for the last 100 edits and the last 20 saved revisions kept. A board changed in another tab is never overwritten silently — you can keep yours as a copy.
Worked example
Worked example: score and time on ground. A side kicks 10 goals and 7 behinds: 6 × 10 + 7 = 67 points, shown as 10.7 (67). A player who comes on at 0:00, goes off at 10:00, comes back at 15:00 and goes off at 25:00 of a 40-minute active match has played 600 + 600 = 1,200 seconds — 20 minutes, or 50% of the active time.
Common mistakes
- Treating the oval as an exact venue drawing. Real grounds are not mathematical ellipses; set your ground's length and width and treat the diagram as schematic.
- Assuming elite interchange caps apply to community football. The cap is a setting you enter, or leave unlimited.
- Counting a paused break as playing time. Time only accrues while the match clock runs.
- Sharing a named export by accident. Exports leave out names, notes and results unless you tick them in, and anonymising removes them from the file rather than hiding them.
Frequently asked questions
How is the AFL score calculated?
Six points for a goal and one for a behind: 10 goals and 7 behinds is 6 × 10 + 7 = 67, written 10.7 (67). A score edit never adds a shot unless a shot event was recorded.
Is my team's information uploaded?
No. Boards, rosters, sessions, results and matches are saved only in this browser on this device, with no account. Anyone using the same browser profile can see them, and clearing site data removes them — download a backup from the Library tab if they matter.
Are the drills and plays official?
No. The Australian Rules Football starter drills and playbooks are original teaching examples written for this toolkit and still awaiting review by qualified coaches. They are a starting point, not a complete curriculum, and contact is none by default.
Does the toolkit apply the rules of my competition?
It draws field markings from published geometry and keeps every competition-dependent value — scoring values, period lengths, interchange limits — as a setting you confirm. Advisories (legal areas, offside position, retreat lines) are teaching overlays, never a referee's decision.
Can I share a play with my team?
Yes, by file: export a PDF or image for players, or a .zcoach file another coach can import. An imported file opens as a new copy and never overwrites your work. There is no hosted team link.
Is the shuttle timer a beep test?
No. It is a custom paced shuttle you configure — lane length, speeds, shuttles and recoveries — and it is labelled as not a standardised test. Named standard tests stay switched off until their exact timing, rules, edition and reuse rights are verified, and no VO2 or fitness ranking is produced.
Related tools
- Rugby League Coaching Toolkit
- Netball Coaching Toolkit
- Basketball Coaching Toolkit
- American Football (Gridiron) Coaching Toolkit
- Cricket Coaching Toolkit
- Football (Soccer) Coaching Toolkit
Explore more in Health, Fitness, Nutrition & Body.
Cite this tool
Zerdly. (2026). Australian Rules Football Coaching Toolkit. Retrieved from https://www.zerdly.com/tools/australian-rules-football-coaching/
Tip: Enter any known values to calculate the remaining results.
Designed to run locally in your browser. Tool inputs are not intentionally stored by Zerdly unless stated otherwise.