Sign up now!!! <\/a><\/p>\nBurton unleashes 110ft bomb in Vegas! | 00:09<\/p>\n
The so-called criticism of the pair has been well documented over the last year in particular, including a situation where the NRL\u2019s integrity unit was alerted to alleged abusive rants.<\/p>\n
When asked about the wave of criticism, Shane was more worried about his family than himself, specifically how his wife handles the feedback her husband and son receive.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot real good because she (Kyle\u2019s mum) sees how much he (Kyle) tries and how hard he works. But she\u2019s been around for a fair long time as well so she\u2019ll get on with it.\u201d Flanagan said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not worried about me. I worry about Kyle, he\u2019s got a wife, a child, a young baby and I worry about his sisters and his mum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey see things and read things. That\u2019s what hurts me. I know that hurts Kyle as well. It doesn\u2019t worry me, I can get on with it. I\u2019ve been in this business for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you got to use that (the criticism and commentary) as a plus because that\u2019s money to the game. <\/p>\n
NRL & NFL combine ahead of Vegas opener | 03:02<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually that\u2019s siphoned through to the players and clubs. We\u2019re such a big game these days, but they\u2019re still that personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flanagan also spoke about how much more conscious he is around the mental health of his young players, particularly after what his family has experienced.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really conscious of even players that don\u2019t get picked and making sure that their mental health and their family and everyone\u2019s on board because it\u2019s a tough sport.\u201d Flanagan added.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people out there can be pretty nasty as well, so I\u2019d hate to see any young footballer with mental health issues because of social media and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dragons will begin their 2026 campaign against the Bulldogs from 3:30pm AEDT Sunday March 1 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, on Fox League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch Matty Johns go Face to Face with St. George-Illawarra Dragons coach Shane Flanagan on Fox League at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-504000","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\/504000","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=504000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n