Flanagan savaged the refereeing after full-time,arriving at the post-match press conference armed with a list of grievances and having already spoken to NRL head of football Brian Canavan.
"We've got to fix this up. I've never seen anything like it,"Flanagan said."Luke Lewis,in his whole career,is telling me he's never seen anything like it. It's disgraceful."
The Sharks mentor effectively blamed their defeat on the referees,slamming the first-half sin-binning of James Maloney for a professional foul and the failure of match officials to award them a penalty when captain Paul Gallen charged to within centimetres of the try line in the last 30 seconds of normal time.
"Paul Gallen trying to get up to the play the ball,and there is a bloke who pulls the ball out,"Flanagan said."That should be game,over we win the game full stop.
"When is (the) James Maloney (incident) a professional foul? It's not a professional foul,it's a penalty,if that."
A steaming Flanagan also disputed a range of other decisions,saying he had identified 10 that had unfairly gone against his team. The Sharks were also the beneficiaries of referee Ashley Klein's whistle on Sunday. The most notable example came when centre Ricky Leutele was awarded a penalty coming out of his own terrority despite appearing to drop the ball and Jack Bird latched onto a Chad Townsend kick to score moments later.
Cronulla left Allianz Stadium incensed,however,their premiership defence in tatters. Flanagan also contested that Andrew Fifita had knocked the ball on when trying to scoop up a Morgan kick close to his own line in the closing stages of regular time. It was a crucial call because the Cowboys were awarded a penalty a minute later and levelled the scores.