What an absolutely awful rule. If you slip and land on the floor with your ball-carrying arm, you concede a drop-out.

To what extent do we take it? If the ball is sitting on the ground in your in-goal area, and you pick it up, for a fraction of a second the ball is simultaneously in contact with the ground and your ball carrying hand. Should that then lead to a drop-out? Will we see players dribbling the ball out of their in-goal area with their feet, afraid that by picking it up they will concede a drop-out?

It's madness I tells you, madness!

You're Shayne Hayne and I claim my $5.

Where would you draw the line? A player is tackled in the in goal area? A player grounds the ball delibrately from a grubber kick? A player slips in the in goal area and accidently grounds the ball? There is little difference from the second and third option IMO. If the ball is grounded in the in goal it is either a try, goal line drop out or a penalty.

Either the player grounds the ball deliberately, to prevent an attacking player scoring a try, or grounds the ball inadvertantly because the opposition tackle him. There needs to be some intent to ground the ball, either from the defending player or from pressure from attacking players.

If a winger got through the defence in the corner and had the oppurtunity to get to the under the sticks but slipped in doing so the try would be given at the point he slipped, no difference

It was his intention to ground the ball at some point when he crossed the tryline. A defender trapped in-goal intends to ground the ball back in the field of play.

That leads to interpretation, which in turn leads to inconsistancy. It needs to be black and white with minimal grey. Not just for this rule but for most of the rules.

Spot on.

If it truly were black and white, then we would have the situation I described in my original post, where the split-second between touching a grounded ball, and picking it up would be judged as grounding it.

The solution is for the rules to be the same as outside of the in-goal. So if you fall over and ground the ball in your own in goal but are not touched by the opposition, you should be able to get up and play on. If someone is touching you, it's grounded and a drop out.

There are tons of times where players athletically dive to recover a ball in the in goal, goalkeeper style, but are not judged to have grounded it, so why should slipping over count as grounding it?

I almost typed that this was only common sense. Then I wondered what would happen if a player slipped, grounded the ball, then lost posession allowing an attacker to touch down. The defender would claim he'd grounded the ball intentionally, the attacker that he hadn't. It would be left to the ref to make a decision that would leave 50% of the audience dissatisfied - which happens too often in the game already IMO.

At the point of the slip, it would be down to the referee to wave 'play on'.