Dragons<\/a> fans, Flanagan came in for plenty of criticism as one of the team\u2019s key playmakers\u2014criticism that frequently revolved around the relationship with his coach, and father, Shane.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s definitely hard at times, last year was probably the most challenging for me, (criticising players) can be a game to some people,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was young it probably affected me more than it does today, but I\u2019ve learned through my career how to deal with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just listen to the people you really care about, the coaching staff, your teammates and just focus on doing your job for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
While not immune from the noise, Flanagan said becoming a father has also helped to give him greater perspective around what really matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can try and block it out as much as you want, but you can\u2019t hide from everything,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the moment it can feel hard to get past (the criticism), but you go to bed, you wake up the next morning and see your family and you\u2019re grateful for where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The one thing Flanagan explained does upset him is the impact on the rest of his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can affect my wife, my mum and my sisters, that\u2019s probably the hardest part that I don\u2019t like seeing,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
While there are plenty of outsiders quick to question Flanagan\u2019s treatment under his father\u2019s coaching, the player himself says re-uniting at the Dragons has helped to raise his game on the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe leave that (father-son) relationship at home, all we focus on is working hard, doing our jobs and representing the Dragons the best we can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe definitely makes me work harder than anyone else\u2014I feel it\u2019s brought out my best football playing underneath him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Flanagan is signed with the Dragons until the end of the 2027 season and has currently played 123 NRL games\u2014considerably more than his father, he\u2019s quick to point out.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (Shane) reckons he played 99 first-grade games, but apparently on Google it\u2019s only 78,\u201d Flanagan laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. George Illawarra halfback Kyle Flanagan has responded to his critics and those who continue to accuse his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-290764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}