North Melbourne's Lindsay Thomas says all AFL players stage for free kicks – he's just a particularly bad actor when it comes to getting away with it.
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Thomas drew coach Brad Scott's ire earlier this month after diving to win a free kick in North's round-19 loss to Geelong.
Thomas has form when it comes to staging and Scott has worked hard with him in the past to break the habit.
"I've improved from two or three years ago," Thomas said on Friday.
"I think I've cut it out of my game, but not completely, and I want to cut it out of my game completely.
"But in saying that, I'm not the only player in the AFL that does it. Everyone does it. But I suppose I crossed the line a little bit and Brad didn't like it."
The small forward ruefully agreed that if everyone was doing it - but only he was getting caught - that didn't say much for his thespian credentials.
"You could say that," he laughed. "I'm not the greatest actor."
Ahead of his 150th game this weekend against Adelaide in Tasmania, Thomas spoke about wanting to control how the football public remembered him when his career ran its course.
"It's something that I don't really want to be remembered as when I retire. It's something that I have to cut out of my game and I'm working extremely hard to do that. I had a conversation with Brad and moved on pretty quickly."
