So to clarify - Red kick ball forward, behind blue 15, ball ends up close to the touchline, not far from the Blue defending try line. Blue player, chasing back and across, gets there before other Red and Blue players but rather than going to ground to collect the ball, slides at it and kicks it out of play. I would (assuming no one close enough to make it "dangerous") have previously allowed this as a defensive play. Now it is definitely a penalty.
Yup, although to be fair, I have watched, played and refereed a LOT of rugby over the years, and I have never seen this happen.... and I would have remembered a soccer style piece of play like that. Had I encountered it, I probably would have allowed it.
I am happy with the clarification but is has changed my perspective of something (even if not a true Law Changfe - maybe I was getting it wrong all this time). Basically a player can NEVER go to ground to kick the ball.
Keep the wording of Law 14 in mind
[LAWS]DEFINITIONS
This situation occurs when the ball is available on the ground and a player goes to
ground
to gather the ball,
A player who is not tackled, but who goes to ground while holding the ball, or a
player who goes to ground
and gathers the ball, must act immediately.
[/LAWS]
Kicking the ball is
not gathering it, so in a sense, kicking the ball has never been specifically allowed. The draft, therefore, is not a change in Law, its a clarification, because we are not going from kicking being specifically allowed to kicking being not allowed.
When Law Clarifications are issued, they are not changes to the Law they are explanations of the way the Law was supposed to have been interpreted.