THE NRL went into meltdown Sunday afternoon after a thrilling finish saw the Cronulla Sharks bow out to the North Queensland Cowboys in the second elimination final of 2017.

The messy match was highlighted by a number of refereeing bungles and damning player errors, including star five-eighth James Maloney finding himself in the sin bin after a horror brain fade saw him strike the neck of a kick chaser.

Sharks coach Shane Flanagan was furious at the call being deemed a professional foul and claimed the blow was barely worth a penalty. The 51-year-old came to the post-match press conference with a pre-prepared rant and let the referees have it, saying the NRL must amend the amount of errors made in big games.

“We talk about decisions, crucial decisions and they were all wrong,” he said, reading from a long list on the table.

“We talk about getting people to the game but we have bigger issues, we need to fix this.”

Flanagan was immediately taken to the cleaners for his “pathetic” rant with Triple M presenter Gorden Tallis claiming the Sharks coach was merely using it as an excuse.

Flanagan received a $30,000 breach notice on Tuesday for comments made both in the post-match press conference and to the club’s website.

NRL journalists Paul Kent and Andrew Webster slammed the ugly situation on NRL 360 Tuesday night. Webster took aim at Andrew Fifita’s controversial knock-on, claiming referees were “too timid” to make the correct decision.

“They’re too timid and too gun-shy to enforce the actual rules of the game ... this is the insanity of it. If that’s not madness then I don’t know what is,” he said.

Kent agreed, claiming referees and officials simply needed to harden up.

“You’re 100 per cent right, get rid of this game management system. It’s absolute crap,” he said.

“Become officials again and just show some balls.”

NRL 360 host Ben Ikin took the middle ground and said the potential public relations disaster for referees plays a serious factor in their performance on the field.

Webster and Kent both agreed with CEO Todd Greenberg’s declaration the game needed to “grow up”.

“We’re making the game too difficult to officiate,” Kent said. “What’s the difference between a strip and a loose carry? Because every tackle there’s defender with a hand on the ball, which isn’t allowed to happen, but there is. And when the ball pops through the referee has to make a judgment call on whether it’s a strip or a loose carry — and the moment he makes one of them he’s disenfranchised 50 per cent of the fans.

“And you know what? That’s because we’ve made the game too complicated.”

HYPOCRITICAL GAL SLAMMED FOR OUTBURST

Sharks skipper Paul Gallen admitted he was “shattered” after Sunday’s loss and didn’t shy away from the tough questions in a tense interview on Big Sports’ Breakfast Tuesday morning.

“I’m really upset to be honest, really shattered, it’s a really empty feeling this morning,” he said.

When asked what caused their 2017 capitulation, the 36-year-old took no time in joining Flanagan in lashing the refs.

“I can’t say the referees can I?” he said.

“A lot of what (Shane Flanagan) said in the press conference I agree with, there were a couple of things there.”

Gallen hit back at critics slamming his side’s error count over the course of the afternoon.

“People are saying ‘what about the missed tackles’, but they’re irrelevant because the score was 14-all at full time. If you go to the error count, it was 17-10 I think. But the Luke Lewis moment when the ball was knocked out, that was (counted as) an error.

“The Fifita (knock-on) that went straight through his legs backwards — that’s counted as an error. (And) my one on the tryline where the blokes got ahold of the ball, that’s counted as an error.

“If you take those four decisions out, it could have gone the other way.”

Presenter Terry Kennedy piped up and fired back at Gallen, claiming the 36-year-old was only talking about the bad calls made towards his team.

“Are you saying the Cowboys didn’t have a bad call against them in the entire 80 minutes?” he said. “They could list four examples as well.”

Gallen hit back claiming the Sharks’ decisions were at “crucial times”.

“But it’s 14-14, everything’s crucial,” Kennedy shot back.

“Exactly right,” Gallen said before revisiting his controversial play-the-ball moment with Scott Bolton.

“With one minute to go ... you cannot hold the ball when a player is playing it, that’s a fact,” he said. “Scott Bolton had two hands on the ball, without a doubt. There’s not one angle you can show me that (shows) he hasn’t got two hands on the ball. It’s a penalty every day but last Sunday.”

The Sharks’ loss means their chance to become the first team in 24 years to win back-to-back premierships is lost. The Sea Eagles will now take on the Parramatta Eels on Saturday night in the second semi-final of the season.