The NRL has answered Ricky Stuart's prayers and called one of the game's greatest minds - Phil Gould - to help solve a refereeing crisis that has caused havoc since the season kicked off.

Stuart feared the game would lose fans to rival codes like AFL and soccer after his side were bundled out of finals contention in highly controversial fashion due to a number of appalling calls against Cronulla on Friday.

“Respectfully, we haven’t got enough people in the NRL that understand the fabric of our game,'' Stuart blew up in his post-match press conference.

“We need to get some senior people, like Bob Fulton, like Phil Gould and Andrew Johns.

“We need to get those people in a room.

“The NRL don’t like me because I’m opinionated. That’s no problem, but get them (brains-trust) in a room and let’s get to a situation where we know exactly what we’re doing and how we want the game played.’’

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The Canberra coach's emotional rants usually go in one ear and out the other - sometimes accompanied by a hefty fine - but the governing body have opened their eyes and taken extra measures in seeking Gould's advice to put this detrimental issue to bed.

Gould refused to name the official that tapped him on the shoulder, but gave away that it was a leading member who is ''responsible for all this'' as he ripped in to the out of control situation.

"I had someone come to me from the league the other day who's responsible for all this and he said 'what do you think of all this, I've got 20 things if we could fix all these up', Gould told the Six Tackles with Gus podcast.

"And I said 'first of all how did we get to where we are now? How did those 20 things become an issue? Do you know the history of these things and why these rules were changed or why these interpretations came into being?'

"(And he replied) 'oh no, not really. 'Well alright, go back and study that and find out about that. And the next thing is, 'what do you think it looks like when it's perfect?' (And he replied) 'what do ya mean?' 'Well, all this work you're trying to do to fix our game, what does it look like when it's perfect?' (And he replied) 'I don't know'. 'Well then, where are we going? Why are we doing all this when we don't know what it looks like when it's perfect?'"

Every Joe Blow has added their two cents with a formula to clean up the refereeing mess, with Andrew Johns suggesting the game must get rid of The Bunker, or Newcastle coach Nathan Brown leading calls for a captain's challenge to be installed.

Even Mark Geyer weighed in with a proposal to revert back to using one referee, while a host of pundits called for heads to roll in the refereeing hierarchy.

But none know the game or have an opinion nearly as respected as Gould.

The Panthers supremo wouldn't give away his panacea, but he did concede there are issues plaguing the refereeing ranks spilling down from Tony Archer and Bernard Sutton.

''I can see referees doing terrible things and making terrible mistakes that affect results that shouldn't be affecting them," Gould said.

"And affecting the sort of football that should be played and I believe that the league has taken the advice of Tony Archer and his role and his philosophy on how the game should be refereed to save the referees, not to promote the game, not to make the game better, not to make the game better for fans or players.

"To save the refs from criticism has been their sole motivation and I think they've totally over-coached, over-reviewed, over-analysed."