When announcers for Australian Rules Football mention a "disposal", what is that?

Question

I have gotten into watching aussie rules football lately and am gradually learning all the rules. However when they show various statistics of the match, the one that boggles me is this term "disposals". Like "so and so has made X number of disposals in the match" or "blah blah has X disposals to boo hoo's Y this period". What exactly is a disposal??

Answer 1

Here are some terms and meanings to help you out.

disposal-a kick or handball

effective disposal-a kick or hand ball that's hits its target or results in a score

clanger-a disposal that goes to the opposition or out of bounds on the full or is totally in-effective

a mark-when a player catches the ball,or it can mean where an opposition player stands after a free kick or a mark.

a goal-is 6 points

a point-is 1 point

hit out-usually when the ruckman taps the ball out during a ruck contest.

drop punt-a type of kick where the ball spins in a backwards motion while in a vertical position,and the most common type.

torpedo-where the ball spins like a torpedo and leaves the foot in a horizontal position,usually used when distance is needed rather than accuracy.

a hanger or speckie or grab-other terms for a mark.

a banana-a type of kick used when a player is having a shot at goal from the boundary line and needs the ball to bend around in an arc type motion.

a snap-usually a kick for goal where the player kicks across his body rather than front on.

Answer 2

A disposal is when you are able to correctly pass the ball to a team mate and they are able to use it. Oppose this to a clanger when you are not able to use it correctly and the ball goes out of play or to an opponent. This period refers to the quarter of the match.

p.s. Go Hawks!!

Answer 3

A little bit of addition to the other pretty good answer.  A disposal is either 'by hand' - a handball that must be done by punching the ball off a stationary hand, or a kick which can be in any form (drop kick, drop punt, torpedo (what American footballers use for kick off)).  The most common is the drop punt because it is long ... 50 metres (yards) is common and 70 is not unheard of ... and is more reliable for accuracy and speed that the torpedo.

However ... important point - a disposal is only considered a disposal if it is 'legal'.  (A kick must be kicked from below the knee).  A different measure is effective disposals.  These are the disposals that actually get to your team mate or score.

Disposals are generally seen as one very good measure of whether players are working hard.  However, I have seen a guy rack up ten disposals standing on the same spot! (passing to and from other players to waste time!!

And if you need a good team to follow ... I highly recommend the Geelong Cats ... they are the only non-cheating team in the competition and as you can see from the current table .. they are clearly superior to any other team. :)

Oh ... and if you DO ever figure out all the rules, you might explain them to the umpires ... they sem a little unsure sometimes :)

Answer 4

Basically disposing of the ball.

The more disposals the better because it means a team has had more control - usually. A disposal is just get rid of it by hand passing  or kicking the ball. Simple.

Answer 5

a disposal is when a player gets rid of the ball by a kick or handball. at the end of a game a player might of had 10 kicks and 12 handballs so they are added together to make a total of 22 disposals.