You don't reckon the Refereings making close games that look better for the TV cameras................

When a attacking player is playing the ball they sometimes fumble the ball & it goes backwards the referee then awards a scrum for a knock on surely this should be a penalty to the defending side as this is an incorrect play the ball offence.

Also where does it state in the rules that the player feeding the scrum can roll the ball along the ground in a backward direction towards his loose forward I thought the ball had to be fed in to the centre of the tunnel not passed directly to the loose forward.

Well it clearly isn't right, since most folk watching that thought it ludicrous, a bit like all this obstruction nonsense which brings me back to where I started.
Rules that result in decisions like that are clearly nonsense and not fit for purpose and then compounded by numpty jobsworths like Thaler, who have no common sense.
It was clearly a knock on.

Anyway armed with a rule book, let them continue to make a farce of things.

Would have though that one of the parameters of a charge down is that you should be charging.

According to the rules, it wasn't a knock on. Ben Thaler had no choice but to deem it to be a charge down.

How should the rule be written? "The player should be deemed to knock on when the ball is still moving in an upward motion from a kick if the player knocking the ball forward isn't moving towards the kicker with the intention to block the kick."

The business with all the obstruction decisions is very frustrating.

The problem here is that when a ref makes a decision in play, the decision is usually obvious for all to see. When it goes to the video ref, they get their slide rules out and make a decision strictly in accordance with the law. As these are quite often borderline, they quite often seem unfair.

Most of the time, strictly in accordance with the rules, the video ref does make the correct decision, but those decisions seem harsh.

Clubs and the RFL need to get together on this one and get it ironed out before it drives spectators nuts.

Well it's driving me nuts, and I will guarantee that it won't be allowed to carry on much longer before the refs are told to stop it and use some discretion.
That is the key to this, not slavish adherence to a rule book.
Some of these so called obstructions aren't obstructions.
Defenders are running into dummy runners deliberately to stop certain tries.
Luke Dorn's effort was a try in any other era but this constipated phase of over-zealous buffoonery.
Their interpretation of the rules is wrong in many cases.

I'd wager that they wouldn't dare do that to a touring Aussie side.
There would be hell to pay.

The trouble with allowing refs to use discretion is that they'll all have different interpretations which will frustrate us just as much because there will seem to be inconsistencies.

They have discretion with the speed of the play the balls. No two refs are alike on this, especially in our league.

S/O is right in that defenders look for the obstruction and if it goes to the video ref, it's probably going to be given. If there is no video ref, it's probably going to be allowed.

Perhaps the question the referees/video refs need to ask is, "Did the potential obstruction make any material difference to the outcome of the try being scored?"