Deliberate Knock-ons

[Old Hob]

It does not seem to be a grey area at all. Succeed - fine; fail and, whatever your intention, you are a villain - penalty.

The grey area comes when a player makes an attempt to catch the ball and knocks on. The ball leaves his hand in an upwards motion rather than being slapped down and the ref gives a penalty rather than a knock on. When this occurs it needs more clarity! Morris's yellow was a clear attempted catch!

I was (cynically) posting the reality as seen by the referees rather than the intentions or otherwise of the law makers

[BarmyBamford]

Didn't they change the interpretation a year or so back to make any one handed intervention a penalty/yellow card where previously knocking it up was left to the ref to decide if it was a genuine attempt to intercept ( if not regathered )?

[Northeast Tiger]

I watch the Super rugby in the southern hemisphere and last week a player went for the intercept one handed. He tapped the ball forward in the air and as it came down tapped it forward again and and the third attempt caught it and ran forward and scored. The referee had no problem with it. In the Northern hemisphere we seem to adjudge this as a knock on. Why?
Just a thought, what would the referee do if a player was running with the ball and as he was about to be tackled he tapped the ball forward volley ball style over the tacklers head, and ran around the tackler and caught the ball without it touching the floor and carried on towards the try line? The laws do state the ball has to be passed backward but some one handed intercepts do get tapped forward and caught with nothing being given by the Ref.

[DickyP]

I watch the Super rugby in the southern hemisphere and last week a player went for the intercept one handed. He tapped the ball forward in the air and as it came down tapped it forward again and and the third attempt caught it and ran forward and scored. The referee had no problem with it. In the Northern hemisphere we seem to adjudge this as a knock on. Why?
Just a thought, what would the referee do if a player was running with the ball and as he was about to be tackled he tapped the ball forward volley ball style over the tacklers head, and ran around the tackler and caught the ball without it touching the floor and carried on towards the try line? The laws do state the ball has to be passed backward but some one handed intercepts do get tapped forward and caught with nothing being given by the Ref.

The Laws are best described as unclear on this whole area: there used to be descriptions of adjustments but these seem to have disappeared.
In the first case the ref would probably have been wrong if the actions could not reasonably have been described as an adjustment. However, the Law now merely talks about catching it before it hits the ground or another player. It will all depend on the guidance given and we know the SH's somewhat cavalier approach to observing the laws.
When the knock on was originally modified to allow 'adjustments' the latter case was specifically described as not allowed. You were not supposed to gain an advantage from the adjustment.