Yes. The referee gave a dropout 22m. If that is the law being officiated correctly then fair enough. But as far as I can see the red player deliberately tried to knock the ball out of play which directly affected play. The fact it came off something else first shouldn't come into it.
I don't see Blue getting his hands on it first. I see red tapping it away. Negative play, which if not against the laws is quite concerning.
I actually think tapping the ball when 2 players are going for it should be outlawed completely (apart from lineout obviously). It's a completely negative play. Players should show they are attempting to catch the thing not tap it away.
This one is 100% legal as the ball is knocked towards his own tryline. But the green player is never attempting a catch. Just to disrupt negatively. Juts a bugbear of mine.
Surely all defensive play is negative in that it is aimed at preventing the opponents from scoring. I think negativity is a red herring. I have seen some brilliant attacking tip passes. If you are going to allow those for the attackers, you MUST allow them for the defenders as well.
I think the basic point was decided back in the nineteenth century. When England played Scotland in 1884, a Scot knocked the ball back from a lineout. An Englishman grabbed it and dived over the try line. The Scots claimed that knocking the ball in any direction was against the law, so play should have stopped at that point.
In those days, each side provided an umpire, and any offence had to be appealed. If the two umpires agreed, the scrum was awarded. If they disagreed, then a relatively new-fangled invention called the referee would adjudicate. The Scots claimed their umpire had agreed and that several players on both sides had stopped, thinking the English umpire had agreed. The referee was Irish (he had in fact played against both countries in the previous season).
It turned out that in Scotland they always treated any knock as an infringement. However the game was being played in England, so the RFU pointed out that their interpretation applied: knocking back had always been legal. The referee agreed and later said that he did not see why the Scots should be entitled to benefit from their own error - the first ever advantage call? (There was no advantage law at that time, because if you wanted advantage, you simply did not appeal).
A delightfully waspish correspondence ensued between the two union secretaries and Scotland refused to play England the next season. A year later in Dublin the Scots finally agreed to accept the decision "for the good of rugby", but this was one of the incidents that led both to the formation of the IRB, and to giving the referee power to make decisions without appeals, relegating the umpires to touch judge duties.
