KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany -- The extravagant fall by Italy's Fabio Grosso over the body of Lucas Neill which gave Italy the last-minute penalty it needed to beat Australia on Monday was once again proof that playacting players can and do prosper at this World Cup.

It came a day after the shameful antics of the Portuguese and Dutch players in their second-round game in Nuremberg, in which 16 players received yellow cards and four red cards.

The second half of that game descended into farce as almost every player tackled writhed around in agony in the hope of getting the other player booked or sent off.

Any time a team gained momentum an opposition player would go down injured. By the time the player had "recovered" the momentum had gone.

So, what to do about the cheats?

Once again, as always happens during a big tournament, the relative merits and demerits of video technology are trotted out. The general idea to deter the cheats is to have another referee pitch-side who can immediately decide whether someone is conning the on-pitch official.

The hope is that the presence of this technology would be deterrent enough, as the actual use of video replays during the match would have a terrible effect in slowing down the flow of the game.

Three teams spring to mind -- there may be more but none immediately leap out -- who have risen above the disgraceful feigning of injury.

England, the U.S. and Australia all seem to play the game in the spirit of fairness, although both the U.S. and Australia are not slow in dishing out the rough stuff.

Indeed, in both teams' games against Italy they seemed to decide that because the Italians have a tendency to overdo the theatrics when tackled, they would give them a reason to roll around by crunching into tackles.

Talking with the U.S. fans after their game against Italy and the Aussie fans on Monday as they made their way back to Kaiserslautern Station after their heartbreaking loss, it became apparent that this behavior -- and the Italians have been far from the worst offenders -- is utterly alien to them, many of whom have been brought up on sports besides soccer.

The opinions rarely differed and are the same ones that have been heard over the years: sports such as Australian Rules football, ice hockey and American football are all rough games, but you see little or none of the skulduggery found in the World Cup and in soccer, generally.

The sports mentioned above are obviously not above the criticism soccer receives and there are other ways players get an advantage over their opponents in these sports.

But it is the desire to not show weakness or simulate injury that seems to have rubbed off on the U.S. and Australia soccer teams.

The same can be said for the English team, and although this is still generally the case there have been rare occasions in the past when they have prospered from playacting.

It would be nice, too, to say the "samurai spirit" of Japan meant the Boys in Blue rose above the tomfoolery on show in Germany, but in their match against Australia many of the Japan players were as guilty as Italy's Grosso in Kaiserslautern on Monday and those responsible for the shameful scenes seen in the Portugal-Netherlands game on Sunday.