An extreme forward C of G would have prevented him from coming to the hover and he would have had a persistent forward drift.
It looks like he panicked when the tail went down further than he expected on the first attempt at landing and he shoved in a big forward cyclic input, nearly saved it and then got into a PIO
You can have the C.G outside of the fwd limit without that automatically prevent you from a controlled hover, it does not need to be extreme. If you're at the limit, the front skids will touch ground first even the spot is perfectly level. If you at the same time lower the collective too fast (as it seems to be the case here) the feeling of a rocking chair can make the pilot pull collective fast again in an attempt to cushion the set down, but get airborne again as a result. Then the cyclic will not be sufficient at the aft stop to prevent the helicopter to nose forward and accelerate.
Tailwind will add to over controlling, as seen in the Fiji 350 in 2015:
Fiji crash, and last years EC130 in Michigan
EC130 crash. Essentially the same ''pilot-finesse'' in these cases.
These machines are easy to load for a fwd CG and handles quite well with it at the limit if you know what you're doing, until it bites. Anyone that has flown heli-ski or any taxi with 2-place bench up front will know what this is.