If the tackle is the pre-eminent skill in AFL footy, then yes, ball-carriers this year are getting away with murder.

One spin, two, then as the manoeuvre threatens to become a full-scale pirouette, a toe-poke of a kick or a centrifugal handball, and it is play on. The days when the 359th degree was considered to be the point at which having the ball became holding the ball are long gone.

The Crows’ Jake Soligo gets caught holding the ball by Campbell Chesser, of the Eagles on Sunday.Credit: AFL Photos

And the crowd howls for “ball”, and howls........

© The Sydney Morning Herald