Staging, flopping, diving, exaggerating contact, milking free kicks - whichever way you want to describe it - returned in ugly fashion in round 11.
The supporters detest it, and it damages players' reputations.
However, the umpires, Michal Christian and the AFL, don't care.
They've given up.
It nearly cost Gold Coast and Hawthorn victory.
On Saturday, St. Kilda’s marquee man Max King flailed backwards and hit the deck after a light push, in retaliation, from Hawthorn defender James Blank. The gullible umpire got sucked in and awarded King a 50m penalty; on his way to kick the goal from the top of the goal square, King dropped again after a James Sicily bump. The umpire paid another 50, not that it mattered.
Luckily Hawthorn won. But only just.
Then, later that night Bulldogs small forward Cody Weightman milked one and kicked a goal in the crucial last quarter as the Bulldogs started storming towards victory in Darwin.
The umpire was only five metres away, with the perfect view of Weightman's exaggerated movement; he couldn't help but blow his whistle.
The worst of the lot came late in the Adelaide-Brisbane game when Adelaide's Taylor Walker embarrassed himself but toppling over and trying to milk a 50m. Luckily, the umpire saw straight through it this time and ordered Walker bluntly to get up.
As Sam Edmund reported on SEN Sportsday last night, not only did the Match Review Officer Christian, not fine Weightman for staging, he didn't even consider it. A fact that has left Gold Coast furious.
Nor did he fine Max King.
Or Taylor Walker.
The AFL cares about staging less than you do. They don't care at all.
It's a free invitation for players to keep doing it; the umpires will probably pay you a cheap free kick, and the MRO won't even consider a punishment.