Run your training week

The week's real work happens on the training pitch, and Training is built around that. You see who is coming while there is still time to do something about it. You put the programme's session plan against the session so anyone covering knows what was intended. And the attendance record builds itself from the statuses you keep, so it is there when selection and retention conversations come round.

Coaching a squad in its first season? Your Training tab stays empty until the club sets the season's weekly pattern, and says so. Work through it in this order.

1. Wait for the sessions. Your technical director sets the weekly pattern, and every session appears on its own from the first week of training. Nothing here needs setting up by you.
2. Put a plan against each session, under Put a plan against the session.
3. Keep statuses true from the first night, under Keep each player's status true. The attendance record starts with the first session.
4. Pick your first team. In a Mixed JDL age group you divide both colours from scratch for Round 1, because there is no previous plan to copy. See Pick your team each week.
5. Run your first match from the touchline.

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• Your squad's training nights, times and grounds are set by the club. You can't add, move or cancel a session yourself, so a change is a message to your club administrator or technical director (how schedule changes work).
• When the club does change a session, it tells you on the session itself: This session has been cancelled, Time changed or Venue changed, with the old time or venue and the reason.
• Training shows the squad you are currently in. If you coach more than one, switch squads from your account menu (your name at the top right) under Switch roles.

Availability is the number that decides your session design, and it changes through the week as players and families update it. Reading it on Monday leaves you time to call a family or bring someone up. Reading it at the ground doesn't.

Open Training. The Upcoming tab lists your sessions in date order, each with its arrival time, session time, the plan against it (or Needs plan) and how many players are available out of the squad. On Sam Halloran's BYL U13 list below, today's session has its plan and the next three still need one.

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The count turns amber and then red as numbers drop. When the whole squad is available it shows a single number. Tap a session to open it.

The plan library is your technical director's methodology for the programme, so starting from it keeps your squad's training in line with the age groups either side of you. It also means whoever covers for you on a bad night knows exactly what was meant.

On a phone the session opens with two tabs, Squad and Session Plan. On a computer they sit side by side.

1. Open Session Plan. A session without one reads Plan your session.
2. Tap Browse Library and choose a template for your age group.
3. The plan is copied onto the session and Session plan assigned confirms it.

Assigning copies the template, so the library original never changes. The buttons at the top of the plan swap it for another template (Change) or take it off (Remove, confirmed with Remove Plan). On a phone they show as icons. The drills themselves aren't edited here.

If your technical director has left instructions for this session, they sit in the amber TD Notes box above the exercises. That box is theirs to write. Read it before you set up.

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The Squad tab is tonight's roster: Available at the top (grouped by position in youth and senior squads), then Modified, Rehab, anyone Invited to this session from outside your roster, anyone training up or down, Guests, and everyone Unavailable at the bottom with their reason. Families set most of these themselves. You change a status when you know something the app doesn't.

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1. Tap the pencil at the end of the player's row. (Tapping their name and then Edit on their profile card gets you to the same place.)
2. Update Availability opens with seven options: Available, Modified, Rehab, Away, Sick, Injured and Training up.
3. For anything other than Available, choose a Duration: This session, This week, Until... a date, or Season. A two-week ankle then doesn't need re-marking every session.
4. Tap Save.

The three that mean the player is at the session line up with how much team training they do: Available is full training, Modified is part training, and Rehab is at the ground but not in team training, doing their own work with the physio or in the gym. Modified asks for Training Restrictions (required), for example "No contact, upper body only". Whoever runs the next session sees that note against the player's name. For the other statuses, Rehab included, the note is optional. Rehab covers training only, so a player on rehab still appears in your match squad.

When you mark a player Injured, Clubhouse asks Flag for Physio?. Yes, Flag for Physio records a note on the player's medical record asking the medical team for a clinic review, and Flagged for physio review confirms it. It doesn't send them a notification, so if it's urgent, call them as well.

Rows also carry the squad-health signals where your club uses them: a marker on anyone the wellness check-ins have picked up, and a GRTP Step on a player returning from concussion. Tap the GRTP step to see where the player is and, when the step is yours to sign off, confirm it.

Short on numbers, or giving a younger player a look at the next level? Add them to the session rather than working around a roster that says they aren't there.

1. Tap Add Player at the bottom of the Squad tab.
2. Choose From Club for one of the club's players, or Guest for someone from outside the club.
3. Pick the team and player (or enter the guest's name and a note on who they are), then how long: This session, This week, Until... or Season.

For a club player you can also mark them unavailable for their own squad's sessions during that window, so their home coach isn't planning around them. Younger players appear under Training Up and older ones under Training Down.

Removing a guest who is booked for several sessions asks which you mean: Just this session or All sessions.

Past sessions move to the Complete tab on their own. The count there becomes who attended out of the squad. Where no separate register was taken, that count is the players marked Available. Modified and Rehab players aren't in it, which is another reason to keep statuses true on the night. It feeds each player's Train % on My Squad, the number under every selection and retention conversation this season.

If your squad wears GPS, completed sessions also carry a load read, and the session itself shows a Session Load card. Reading it takes a minute and is the cheapest injury prevention you'll do all week.

• Every upcoming session has a plan against it before the day, and nothing still reads Needs plan.
• You read the availability count early enough to act on it.
• Statuses match reality: the injured player isn't sitting in Available, and every Modified player has their restrictions written down.
• The counts on Complete match who was actually on the grass.