For whatever it’s worth, I now penalize this every time I see it. I don’t referee age grade often, but have penalized it there also.
do the players "understand" (whether AG or seniors) ? Or do they just look confused and walk back with a "WTF was that about" look and a shrug?
that's not to say your are not correct of course. Im more intrigued as to the bigger picture TBH - in 40+ years of playing & coaching (and a few more now just watching!) I have never saw this pinged once. But I have seen players diving on loose balls in the vicinity of rucks, mauls, scrums etc ALL the time, to tidy up a loose and messy ball.
Hence my query above about what exactly is the purpose of this law - what is its rationale? I wonder if its from some very ancient time when there was a point, the game moved on, changed dramatically, but the law never got removed cos law changes a million years ago only ever happened about every twenty years, so everybody had forgotten vwhy it was there.
didds