He’s still smarting from Valentine Holmes’ dramatic 11th-hour walk-out but Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan is refusing to panic despite losing more than half of his 2018 NRL preliminary final backline.

Holmes’s release from the final year of his contract comes after Flanagan allowed Jesse Ramien and Edrick Lee go to Newcastle and Ricky Leutele to the English Super League - largely because the coach was banking on keeping his superstar fullback on a new multi-million-dollar, long-term deal.

“If we knew Val wasn’t (going to be) here, one or two of those players might have still been here,” Flanagan told AAP.

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Round 20

But rather than hastily shelling out the big chunk of cash suddenly back at the Sharks’ disposal, Flanagan is leaning towards pinning his faith on Cronulla’s crop of next-gen stars - headed by teenage sensation Bronson Xerri - to fill the backlinevoid.

Under NRL welfare rules, Xerri, who has committed to the Sharks until the end of 2021, was ineligible to make his debut in 2018.

“He’s a really good young kid who played Australian schoolboys and everything. I rate him highly,” Flanagan said.

“I would have played him in first grade this year but he wasn’t old enough. You’ve got to be 18 now.”

Now that he is 18, Xerri looms as an exciting proposition for Flanagan, who believes he has ample options - including his talented 19-year-old son Kyle - to not immediately need to rush into the player market.

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“Josh Morris will go on the left and Dugan will be the right centre and I’ve got some other really good young kids,” he said.

“And Sione Katoa played a couple of games last year. He’ll be better for that.

“On the wing, we’ve still got Sosia Feki and then I’ve just got to make a decision with fullback.

“Do I move Moylan and put Kyle in the halves?

“There’s another opportunity to move Dugan and put Bronson Xerri in the centres, or do we buy someone to play fullback?

The Sharks are reportedly keen to lure Rabbitoh Alex Johnston to the Shire. Source: Getty Images

“So we’re ok at the moment. We don’t need to panic.”

Unsettled South Sydney flyer Alex Johnston remains a possible target but the wannabe fullback is under contract with the Rabbitohs until the end of 2020.

“We’ve been interested in Alex before we lost Val,” Flanagan said.

“But we won’t do anything in the player market for a week or two.”

Flanagan said Ben Barba, a try-scoring hero of Cronulla’s historic 2016 grand final triumph, could also return to the Shire after his 2019 NRL resurrection at North Queensland.

“We might just sit tight and use the players we’ve got,” he said.

“We might wait and buy a marquee player the following year.

“It could be an edge forward. It could be someone in the halves or a fullback.

“We just need to get our heads together as a recruitment retention group and then make a decision.”