England head coach Eddie Jones and Australia counterpart Dave Rennie both called for changes to the deliberate knock-on law after they each lost a player to a yellow card in the second Test at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane Saturday.
The tourists levelled the three-Test series at one apiece after surviving a Wallabies comeback to win 25-17.
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To confuse matters, England lock Jonny Hill was penalised for the same offence in the first half, but escaped a card.
Perese appeared to be attempting to catch the ball, while Smith seemed to be trying to get his arm out of the way.
"I think the game's out of control," Jones said.
"We've gone the full hog where everything's a yellow card, everything's a red card, and there needs to be some common sense come back into the game.
"Sometimes they're not deliberate knock downs. I would say both of those (Perese and Smith) definitely went for the intercept.
"...You saw the New Zealand-Ireland Test, at one stage, commentators couldn't count how many players were on the field, you had three backs packing a scrum.
"We've gone the full hog where everything's a red card, yellow card and there needs to be some common sense.
"I picked up the referee's pocket (before the game), he had plenty of cards in it."
Jones said there was a big difference between a player attempting an intercept and a deliberate slap down.
"They can make a choice to go for an intercept and if they knock it on, then it's a knock on," he said.
"It's not a deliberate knock down."
Rennie said he understood nobody liked the law, least of all the officials.
"If you ask the refs, they don't like it either, but it's the law and so they have to ref it," he said.
"There's no doubt Izzy's trying to catch it.
"It was certainly different from a deliberate slap down, but it's the law and the ref's got to ref accordingly."
