St George Illawarra Dragons head coach has hinted that he was less than impressed with the refereeing performance during his side's one-point loss to the New Zealand Warriors on Saturday evening.
While the Dragons didn't help themselves with their own mistakes and decision-making - something Flanagan was happy to admit - a number of questionable calls in the first half made life hard for his side, with Flanagan honing in on one against Corey Allan in partcular.
"When we got 50 per cent of the possession, it started to turn. The first half, some of the decisions that we got put us under too much pressure," Flanagan said during his post-match press conference.
"I'm not talking about referees or referee decisions, but there was one that they ruled Corey Allan played at the football and it was last tackle. It just puts us under so much pressure and I think they scored on the back of that.
"As I said there were a couple of decisions that made it hard for us, but that wasn't just the referee. That was us as well. We made it hard for ourselves.
"I can't question their effort. Execution I can question, but not their effort."
The Dragons, who struggled with their completions in the first half, lost the game despite scoring more tries than the Warriors, with goal kicking and field goal pressure a key issue.
Luke Metcalf, who kicked the winning point for the Warriors, did so under no pressure, but Flanagan said it wasn't a major issue.
"There was a bit of kick pressure there, but it was obviously two middle forwards there and they couldn't get there quick enough. We should have iced a try after that," Flanagan said on the field goal.
"I thought that we tried really hard, but if we kick our goals, I'm not sitting here answering these questions. We need to stay on the journey.
"There were some good things to come out of the game."
