Damien Cook has taken a firm stand against what he described as online bullying directed at Dragons halfback Kyle Flanagan, crashing his own coach's press conference after Saturday night's win over Parramatta to call out a wave of unfair criticism levelled at the 25-year-old.
The Dragons' 34-20 win at WIN was a much-needed response after consecutive losses had triggered a fierce social media backlash, with some fans pointing fingers at the Flanagan father-son package deal.
Cook wasn't having any of it.
"I'm going to jump in here," Cook said abruptly as Shane Flanagan began answering questions.
"Fans can all have their opinion. There's nothing wrong with that. But to bash someone online and nonstop going at it โฆ online bullying is a different thing. That's something we can't have and we're not going to support it."
Cook made clear that recent form issues were not down to the halves.
"I was very happy to see Kyle get a try tonight. He works hard at what he does. It hasn't been a halves issue the last couple of weeks. We've just been beaten. Tonight we played our best footy and you can see what happens when the forwards lay a platform, the halves can do their job."
Shane Flanagan acknowledged that Kyle is not at the very top tier of NRL playmakers, but hit back strongly at suggestions the No.7 jersey has been the problem during recent losses.
"We're not for one second saying Kyle is the elite of the elite, but even though he's my son, there's no kid that tries harder than him," the coach said.
"It wasn't the halves issue the last two games we lost. It had nothing to do with the halves. We dropped kicks and we got run over in the middle part of the field."
Saturday's win showed what happens when the basics are executed well.
"We turned that around today, we caught our kicks, and we ran hard and got good field position," Flanagan said.
"It's a bit of a domino effect, but we can't be pointing the finger at our halves for the last two weeks."
