On last nights showing, the ball steal call is becoming more and more of a lottery.
There were instances of the ball carrier "letting the ball go" if there was contact with the ball, rather than the ball being "stolen".
It is becoming similar to "diving" in football and it seems that there is less responsibility on the attacking player to protect the ball.
Surely for a penalty to be given, the ball should need to be reefed, rather than just touched ?

It's a tough one for ref's. Often even with several replays I'm not sure whether it was a penalty or lost ball. No idea what could be done other than asking players to play fair

For me referees give pens too easily for balls "steals/hands on the ball"

When your making tackle you have to secure the ball. So your hands are then going to end up on it. Unless the referee can see deliberate attempt at stealing the ball then they should give a knock on. You'd be amazed how quickly all teams suddenly start keeping hold of it.

I think, equally as likely, teams would increasingly tackle the ball, to force the knock on decision

With humans involved. Conning the ref and the ref making split second calls error will happen. It'sjjust a facet of sports that will endure forever. You can only hope they try to get it right.

Just go back a few years & let them strip the ball I never saw it as a problem. Union have got it right on this, you let the ball be stripped from you its a knock on against you if it touches the ground.

That, IMO, would be the way to go with it. Put the onus on the ball carrier to retain possession.

The one that bugs me is what there are a few in the tackle and all momentum by the ball carrier has pretty much stopped, and the ball comes literally flying out, then the ref calls for a knock on. I can't see how you can knock it on and the ball comes flying 5 metres forward, surely it would just bobble to the floor? That's where, if I was a ref and couldn't quite make out exactly what had happened, I would be inclined to assume it was reefed.

Players bending the rules to see how far they can go and biased fans complaining about match officials.

The season is back!

Then we'll get 2 tacklers holding the players arms whilst a 3rd takes the ball.
The reason it can work in Union is because more than one attacker can be involved in a tackle which isn't the case in League.

The rule isn't the problem. It's about the only one that can work in the fully pro era.
Personally I think the refs could be better/more consistent on this but as mentioned earlier it's incredibly difficult for them to tell and as fans we're just going to have accept that the refs will get some right and some wrong.
It would also help if Sky didn't repeat the incidents over and over again in slow motion and then the commentators constantly refer to it throughout the game. Union has just as much a problem with reffing interpretations but they don't focus on it.

There are so many issues here, tacklers put hands on ball/arms in to stop offload, tackler releases arms/tries to pull arm out when attacker squeezing and ball comes out.. Who's at fault?

Not biased on this one.
I wasn't bothered who won the game last night but, some of the ball "steal" decisions are ludicrous.
For me, the rule needs to be about a deliberate act to steal or dislodge the ball when there are 2 or more players making the tackle and in many instances, the ball carrier should protect the ball far better.