He's only been in the head coaching caper for a couple of games but new Cronulla mentor Shane Flanagan clearly has one eye on his wallet and the other on domestic harmony, when it comes to bagging NRL officials.

Flanagan felt three crucial calls went against his side in their 24-22 loss to Wests Tigers at Leichhardt Oval on Saturday night.

He described them collectively as a massive turnaround. Included among them were no try rulings against winger Blake Ferguson and centre Ben Pomeroy.

The latter came in the last few minutes when Pomeroy was adjudged to have been held, even though the momentum of the Tigers defenders appeared to push him onto their line for a potential match-winning try.

Flanagan, who recently took over the job from Ricky Stuart, queried the decisions and gave his reasons for doing so during his post-match press conference.

No doubt aware of the fines that can be imposed for directly criticising officials, Flanagan tempered his comments about the contentious decisions by resorting to humour.

"I've only just started coaching, I dont want to start complaining about referees, the wife will kill me," Flanagan quipped.

He said he was proud of his side's effort against the Tigers, especially their defence.

Beaten in his first two starts as a first-grade coach, Flanagan felt wins were just around the corner for his club, who have lost 14 of their 19 fixtures to be the only team on the table above the disgraced Storm.

"Every week from now we're going out to win, not just to compete," Flanagan said.

"I feel a lot for those boys in there because of the commitment that they gave. They battered their bodies for 80 minutes and they've done it for 21 rounds this year and haven't got a lot of reward, but they are going to get some in the next couple of weeks, I'm sure."

Flanagan was pleased with his team's improved kicking performance, which gleaned three tries from bombs.

"We've worked hard on it over the last couple of weeks," Flanagan said.

"It wasn't that crash hot last week against Canberra, that was one area we fell down, so it was good to see some results there."

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