Quote ="Thoth"As joetwizzy says rule exists to counter defending players deciding to knock-on deliberately instead of intercepting a pass by catching the ball.
Saddened I can see your point but this would have been extremely dangerous to do especially before limited tackles were brought in given turnover ball often relults in line breaks or overlaps.
I thought this rule was brought in a very long time ago (as in the early part of the 20th century), but rarely seems to be penalised.'"
Could it not be argued that a player is trying to intercept rather than knock the ball out of the way in a pass?
I think it's more to do with the old scrums.
