St George Illawarra Dragons head coach Shane Flanagan has admitted he would have paid a fine for press conference comments on Saturday evening after his side's loss to the Canberra Raiders.
The Dragons, who went into the game severely understrength owing to a mounting injury toll - Lachlan Ilias was the only Top 30 player left not in the squad for Saturday evening's game - fought hard but ultimately came up short of a dramatic comeback against the Raiders, who seemed to suffer yet another lapse in concentration during the second half.
While the Dragons went into halftime behind on the scoreboard, things could have been different if they were awarded the first try of the game which was called back due to a forward pass to Tyrell Sloan, who went over untouched in the corner.
Replays appeared to show the pass flat at worst, but the decision would see the Raiders head down the other end and put the first points on the board shortly afterwards.
Flanagan didn't explicitly say what it was about, but didn't dispute that was the case when asked.
"Lucky the rules are changing in relation to press conferences because I'd be paying a fine," Flanagan said during his post-match press conference.
"You know exactly what it's about, everyone knows it's there, what was there, and it's tough."
Plenty of coaches with sides in the bottom half of the table this year have questioned whether teams at the top of the ladder get the rub of the green from referees, and Flanagan has now added his name to that list.
“When you're a side flying high like the Raiders, you probably see that they get the bounce of the ball and they deserve it because we're at the top of the table and when you're where we're at in the middle of the table sometimes you feel that you just don't get the rub of the green, so it's a tough one and in the end that's the difference," the coach added.
The under-pressure coach said his side should have won the game and could be proud of their efforts.
"We're a proud club, we have a strong group, Canberra are a good side, and we fought back and we should have won without a doubt," Flanagan said.
"I thought everyone stepped up. I thought everyone had some moments, we had some not-so-good ones, and we had some really good ones, and we put ourselves in the game."
The loss leaves the Dragons two points out of the top eight, but with 6 wins from 15 games, they will likely need another 6 or 7 wins from their final 9 games to make the finals.
