Many of the angry comments on Twitter seemed to say that as he didn't have time to react once the catcher jumped, the law is unfair. As I understand it, if he'd jumped to attempt to catch the ball - from a position where that was a genuine possibility - that would have been fine. But it looks as if his aim was to be in a position to tackle the catcher as soon as he got the ball/landed.
Which has me thinking, and comparing it to the British and Irish Lions penalty at the end of the second test. Rightly or wrongly, is the position the laws create this: if a player anticipates an opponent receiving the ball, and begins a tackle, runs a particular line at a particular speed, etc, the player is responsible for anything that goes wrong if the situation changes between him beginning that action and contact with the player. In both the situations I'm thinking of, the change is that the other player jumps - but there could be other things, too.
That differentiates this from the allowance for a "late" tackle where the action of the player begins as something undoubtedly within the rules: tackling a player with the ball. Here the action begins as something outside the rules - tackling a player without the ball, anticipating that by the time contact is made, the player will have the ball.
So players should learn to aim to get into position to catch balls they're chasing or, if that isn't possible, to arrive further away from
