What do you mean 'touched forward'? That means nothing.
If it is knocked forward towards the opponent's dead ball line it is a knock-on.
The actual wording in the NRL rule book is:
KNOCK-ON - means to knock the ball towards the opponents’ dead
ball line with hand or arm, while playing at the ball.
What I mean by touch forward:
1. Hand moving in a forward direction toward the goal line
2. Hand contacting the ball
Isn't this why the ref and commentators always making note of which way the player is facing?
The rule wording does seem black and white but it doesn't seem to be applied like that in a lot of cases, a lot of bat backs should be called a knock-on and 90% of full backs dropping the ball should not be.