League scheduling software
Rugby scheduling software: fixtures, sevens days and recovery between games
Rugby scheduling software for clubs and leagues, fifteens and sevens, turns the pitches you really hold into a season you can finish. The method works with any tool, including a spreadsheet; the product section comes after.
Starter is free for clubs with up to 10 teams.
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A season with fixtures, sevens and recovery
0:00 By the end of this video, you will know how to build a rugby season with weekly fixtures, a sevens day that finishes on time, and real rest between games. It starts with the pitches you hold. We will count your match slots, make the pairings, give each round a date, plan recovery, build a sevens day, and get ready for closed pitches. Then we show how Play 2 Earn Sports helps.
How do you schedule a rugby season?
0:24 Fifteens is usually a one-match-a-week game, because players need to recover between matches. So build the season week by week, with one round of fixtures on each playing day. Set the slot from your match format. A fifteens window covers the warm-up, two halves and the changeover. Matches are long, so one pitch often holds two or three in a day.
A worked example: eight teams, two pitches
0:47 Here is a typical example. It is illustrative, not a specific league. A community league has eight teams and two pitches on Saturdays, with kickoffs at nine, ten thirty and twelve. Eight teams in a single round robin play twenty-eight fixtures, in seven rounds of four.
1:06 A free round robin generator makes those pairings, with a bye row if your count is odd. Two pitches with three kickoffs hold six matches a week. The round's four fixtures fit, with two spare slots. Seven rounds take seven Saturdays, and you hold one spare Saturday.
1:24 Too long? Add a kickoff, a third pitch, or a second day.
Recovery between rugby games
1:29 Recovery is part of the schedule. In fifteens, keep one match a week per team. On a sevens day, teams play several short matches, so write a minimum rest time into your event rules and check the plan against it.
A sevens day on one pitch
1:43 Now the sevens day. Here is a typical example, illustrative, not a specific event. Eight teams, two pools of four, on one pitch, with twenty-minute slots for a match in your format. Each pool plays its own round robin: six matches a pool, twelve in all.
2:00 Alternate the pools, one pool A match, then one pool B match, so both pools get the same rhythm of rest. With the pools alternating, no team plays back to back, and every team gets at least one full slot of rest. Check each team's gaps against your rule. After a break, semifinals, then the final: fifteen matches, one day.
A rugby schedule template
2:21 A simple template has one row per match: week, date, kickoff, pitch, both teams and the result. Keep one sheet for the season, one for each sevens day, and note each team's rest.
When rain closes a pitch
2:33 Rain and mud close rugby pitches, so plan for it. Ask early about closed dates, block them before you build, hold spare dates, and agree how a closure is called and shared.
How Play 2 Earn Sports helps
2:46 Now, how Play 2 Earn Sports helps. The league builds the season with round robin, divisions, home and away balance, team availability and venue-conflict checks. A pitch or team booked twice is flagged. Clubs set each pitch's weekly availability and date-specific closures, and block holidays and closures on their teams, venues and pitches.
3:07 The league sets the allowed days and the earliest and latest kickoffs. Clubs can set each team's preferred days, kickoff window, spacing and minimum rest hours, and the scheduler weighs them when it picks times. The weighing is soft, so review the draft, and the league can regenerate the draft until it publishes. Today, the league assigns one referee to each league game, and the referee accepts, declines or hands it back.
3:34 Tournament days use round robin, groups or knockout formats, and the free bracket generator builds single-elimination brackets for four, eight, sixteen or thirty-two teams. A tournament fixture can be postponed before the new time is known.
When a fixture moves
3:48 When a published, upcoming league fixture moves, a notice is queued for both clubs' staff, the affected coaches, rostered players, linked parents and any assigned referee. Each team's existing chat gets an update. Email and push depend on each person's settings.
Try it with your own pitches
4:03 Count the slots, make the pairings, give each round a date, and protect recovery. The full examples and the template are linked in the description. Try it with your own pitches: Starter is free for clubs with up to 10 teams. Thanks for watching.
What makes rugby scheduling different
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Two calendars in one sport
Fifteens runs week by week; sevens runs as festival days. Plan them as two sheets, then look at the whole club calendar.
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One match a week in fifteens
Most fifteens teams play once a week, because players need to recover between matches. Build the season that way.
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Recovery is a scheduling input
On a sevens day a team may play three or four short matches. The gaps between them are part of the schedule, not an afterthought.
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A big, lined pitch
A rugby pitch has try zones at each end, painted lines and padded posts, and it is often shared with other sports. Sevens can often fit two pitches on one full-size field.
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Rain closes pitches
A waterlogged pitch is the most common late change in a rugby season, so spare dates matter.
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A referee for every match
Each match has one referee; who else joins on the touchline comes from your competition's rules.
Step 1
Gather four inputs before you place a match
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Teams per division
Keep fifteens divisions by age group, and list your sevens-day entries apart from the league season. Fix the final counts by a set date.
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Pitch hours you really hold
For every pitch, write the days, the start and end times, whether it is lined for rugby, and whether it is shared or lit. Note where the hours change by date.
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Season dates
First and last playing day, the days you skip for holidays and club events, and the sevens day if it has a date.
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Team unavailability
Ask every club for the dates its teams cannot play, on one form, by one deadline.
Then write down your rules: match length, earliest and latest kickoff, and the minimum rest time between a team's matches on a sevens day.
Step 2
Turn pitch hours into match slots
A slot is the match window plus the changeover. Measure both once in your own league.
Illustrative example, not a specific league.
| Format | Match window (with warm-up) | Changeover | Kickoffs on one pitch in a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fifteens | about 1 hour 15 minutes | 15 minutes | 9:00, 10:30, 12:00 |
| Sevens | about 15 minutes of play | inside a 20-minute slot | 9:00, 9:20, 9:40, and on |
Sevens slots are short and they repeat, so one pitch can host a whole pool stage in a morning: twenty-minute slots sit back to back. A fifteens window plus its changeover is about one hour thirty, so kickoffs sit ninety minutes apart, and one pitch holds about three matches in a day. Time a real match in your own league once and use that number.
Worked example
Fitting rugby fixtures on two pitches
Illustrative example, not a specific league.
A community league runs a fall season of eight teams. Two pitches are held on Saturdays, with kickoffs at 9:00, 10:30 and 12:00. Each Saturday holds six matches.
What the division needs. A single round robin with eight teams needs 8 × 7 ÷ 2 = 28 fixtures, played in 7 rounds of 4.
| Check | Numbers | Fits? |
|---|---|---|
| One round per Saturday | 4 fixtures into 6 slots | Yes, with 2 slots spare each week |
| Whole season | 7 rounds = 7 Saturdays | Yes, and one more Saturday is held spare |
| Per team | 7 fixtures, one a week | Yes |
The spare slots take early-season make-ups. The spare Saturday takes a lost round at the end of the season. If the season is too long, add a third kickoff, a third pitch, or a second playing day; if it is too short, a double round robin doubles the fixtures, so count the weeks first.
Recovery between rugby games
Rugby is a contact sport, so the calendar carries the recovery. Three rules of thumb keep it honest:
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In fifteens, keep one match a week per team
If a round has a bye week or a cancellation, the recovery comes with it.
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On a sevens day, write a minimum rest time into your event rules
Before you build anything, and give it to whoever drafts the schedule.
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Check the plan, not the promise
Walk each team's row and count the gap between its matches. If any team is under your minimum rest time, move that match, not the rule.
How much rest a team needs is your competition's question to answer; the schedule's job is to honour the answer.
Worked example
A rugby sevens tournament day on one pitch
Illustrative example, not a specific event.
Eight teams, two pools of four, one pitch, 20-minute slots. Each pool plays its own round robin: 4 × 3 ÷ 2 = 6 matches a pool, 12 in all.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 9:00 | Pool A, match 1 |
| 9:20 | Pool B, match 1 |
| 9:40 | Pool A, match 2 |
| 10:00 | Pool B, match 2 |
| 10:20 | Pool A, match 3 |
| 10:40 | Pool B, match 3 |
| 11:00 | Pool A, match 4 |
| 11:20 | Pool B, match 4 |
| 11:40 | Pool A, match 5 |
| 12:00 | Pool B, match 5 |
| 12:20 | Pool A, match 6 |
| 12:40 | Pool B, match 6 |
| 1:00 | Break; fields reset |
| 1:30 | Semifinal 1 (top of A vs second of B) |
| 1:50 | Semifinal 2 (top of B vs second of A) |
| 2:10 | Break before the final |
| 2:50 | Final |
Alternating the pools means no team plays back to back: every pool match is followed by a match from the other pool, so every team gets at least one full slot of rest. In a four-team pool, the tightest gap in any draw is forty minutes; some teams get more, and a good order shares the longer gaps around. The break before the final is built the same way, so no finalist comes back under forty minutes. Walk each team's row and count the gaps against your event's minimum rest time, and if a team falls short, lengthen the slot, add a second pitch, or spread the pools over more of the day. Fifteen matches finish by mid afternoon on one pitch. If your event runs a plate or shield for the teams that miss the semifinals, plan those matches into the afternoon or keep them for another day; that part is yours to design.
A rugby schedule template
A good rugby schedule template has one row per match, and one sheet per sevens day.
| Week | Date | Kickoff | Pitch | Home | Away | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sat | 9:00 | Main pitch | Lions | Tigers | |
| 1 | Sat | 10:30 | Main pitch | Wolves | Eagles |
Sample team names. Illustrative example, not a specific league.
For a sevens day, add a "last match" column so the rest between a team's matches is visible while you draft. On the season sheet, keep the pitch in its own column so a closure is easy to find.
Checklist
Checklist: before you publish a rugby season
- Teams per division fixed, and sevens-day entries listed apart.
- Every pitch's hours, lining and shared use written down.
- Match slots set from your real match length, changeover included.
- Rounds counted against playing weeks, not just fixtures against slots.
- Every team plays one match a week in fifteens.
- Minimum rest time written into the event rules and checked against the sevens-day plan.
- Skipped dates blocked, and spare slots plus one spare Saturday held.
- Each club's unavailable dates collected before the draft.
When rain closes a pitch
A waterlogged pitch is a small change when the season has room for it. Ask early about the dates each pitch is usually closed, block them before you build, and hold your spare slots and your spare Saturday. Agree before the season who calls a closure, by when, and how it is shared with clubs and families. The related guides below cover the wider closure process and sharing kickoff times fairly.
In Play 2 Earn Sports
How Play 2 Earn Sports supports a rugby season
Play 2 Earn Sports gives you how the season schedule works in Play 2 Earn Sports, and for leagues the league scheduler builds the season from the inputs above.
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Pitches as they really are
Each venue and pitch has its own weekly availability windows, a buffer between matches and date-specific exceptions.
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Days and times the league sets
The league sets the allowed playing days and the earliest kickoff and latest end time.
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A round-robin draft
League auto-scheduling builds the season with round robin, divisions, home and away balance and team availability, and checks for pitch and team double-bookings. You review the draft before publishing.
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Blocked dates
Clubs can block holidays, closures and tournament weekends on their teams, venues and pitches, and the scheduler keeps matches out of those periods.
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Team preferences, including rest
Clubs can set each team's preferred days, kickoff window, spacing and minimum rest hours, and the scheduler weighs them when it picks times. The weighing is soft, so review the draft before you publish.
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Published means protected
A published or locked schedule is not regenerated over. Moving one fixture runs the same clash checks, and a clear move shows "Game saved. No clashes found."
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Change notices
When a published, upcoming league fixture moves, a notice is queued for the people in the match: both clubs' staff, the affected coaches, rostered players, linked parents and any assigned referee. Each team's existing chat gets an update. Email and push depend on each person's settings.
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Officials
Today, the league assigns one referee to each league game. The picker checks the sport, the league's required level and the referee's unavailable days, and the referee accepts, declines or hands the game back. If your matches need more officials on the touchline, plan that crew the way your competition already does.
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Sevens days as tournaments
Tournaments use round robin, groups (pools) and knockout formats, so a sevens day is a tournament. The free bracket generator builds single-elimination brackets for 3 to 32 teams, with byes for the top seeds, and double-elimination brackets for 4 to 32 teams, with an optional reset game, and a tournament fixture can be postponed before the new time is known.
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Families and practices
Practices, RSVPs and team chat, in an app that installs from the website on iPhone and Android.
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One rugby team
Availability, front-row cover and fair minutes for the coach of one team.
Rugby team app
Weekly fixtures, sevens days, and recovery that holds.
Questions
Frequentlyasked questions
Gather four inputs first: teams per division, the pitch hours you really hold, your season dates, and each team's unavailable dates. Turn those hours into match slots, count rounds against your playing weeks, place the fixtures, then check the draft by team and by pitch before you publish.
Teams are split into pools of three or four. Each pool plays a round robin, then the top teams move into a knockout. Alternate pool matches on one pitch so every team gets the same rest, and write a minimum rest time into your event rules. To create the event and take entries, use the free tournament maker.
In a single round robin, each team plays one match fewer than the number of teams, so an eight-team season is seven fixtures each and twenty-eight in all. Sevens days add their own festival matches outside the league season, on top of the league fixtures.
In fifteens, most teams play once a week and keep it that way. On a sevens day, set your minimum rest time from your competition's rules, then check each team's gaps in the draft. The schedule's job is to honour the rule you set.
Yes. Make the round robin pairings with the free round robin generator, for 3 to 32 teams, with a bye row for odd counts. To run the whole season on your real pitch hours, with closures and fixture moves, use Play 2 Earn Sports.
Yes. List your match slots in one sheet and the round-robin pairings in another, then match them round by round. Keep one row per match, one sheet for the season and one sheet for each sevens day, with a column for the rest between a team's matches.
Today, the league assigns one referee to each league game, and the referee accepts, declines or hands the game back. If your matches need a full match-officials team, plan the rest of the crew the way your competition already does.
Starter is free for clubs with up to 10 teams. Pro is $49.67 USD a month for 11 to 25 teams. Unlimited is $99.67 USD a month for 26 or more teams. For leagues, Starter is free for up to 10 clubs, League Pro is $97.85 USD a month for 11 to 25 clubs, and League Unlimited is $196.35 USD a month for 26 or more clubs. Every feature is on every plan, and players and parents are always included. See pricing.
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