Mate, they are treating the public like they are idiots. I'm happy for them to talk about the "rule" as it does seem there is a small chance it is correct.
But there's no way the touchie or the ref would have seen that - it was a blatant forward pass - they should be saying "well the law is this but also the touchie got it horribly wrong and he'll be dropped for two games."
I agree with that but I think accepting the bunker invented a new interpretation on the fly is a worse look. I'm not very happy with the interpretation of this rule they are using, especially as it hasn't seemingly ever come up before (that any juggle that moves forward at any point is a knock on unless 100% regathered). Technically a lot of dropped balls that end up touching ground backwards would be knocks ons because at some stage before being knocked back they had forward momentum not in full control of player...
Touchie did miss a forward pass for sure.
And apply to tries? I've seen a heap of examples where a players doesn't look like having controls but plants a finger back on the ball as it hits the ground and have it awarded.
Sounds like by the letter of the new old law that 100% full control needs to be clearly regathered or presumably you can't score, but they are sidestepping that by calling Katoa a bat on instead of a pass. A bat on is an action where you inherently don't have full control, so they are saying he lost control and then made a pat on (no control) action. For a try they will say didn't have full control but then made a try scoring action with sufficient control or something along those lines.
It was clearly a pass though. Admittedly did not have full control of it but definitely was a pass action.