Irate Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan claims referee Jared Maxwell robbed the Sharks of a season-opening NRL win as premiership favourites Wests Tigers got out of jail with a 17-16 golden point win on Sunday.

Tigers superstar Benji Marshall sent the sun-drenched Leichhardt Oval faithful into a frenzy with his 35-metre field goal three minutes into extra time, completing a remarkable escape act after the game looked gone for the home side on more than one occasion.

But while the Tigers players were relieved and their fans delirious, Flanagan was fuming.

The Sharks mentor pointed out three decisions he claimed Maxwell got wrong, including his decision to penalise the Sharks for offside after Todd Carney’s field goal in the opening seconds of extra time was charged down.

Flanagan’s assertion that Colin Best should also have been awarded a try 16 minutes from time with his side up 14-12 received some support from an unlikely source in video referee Steve Clark.

Clark said he would have awarded the try, but he never got the chance to rule on it with Maxwell refusing to send the decision upstairs after ruling a double movement.

“… in the end, yeah, it did cost us the game,” Flanagan said of the controversial rulings.

“The Colin Best try, that’s a try every day of the week.

“The video referee is two boxes up from me and he says it was a try.

“We’ve got video referees and don’t use it – if we’re not going to use it, get rid of them, save some money.”

Added Sharks skipper Paul Gallen: “They’re (the referees) under a real lot of pressure but it’s just hard when their decision can decide the game, it’s just unfair and you just feel a bit gutted at the moment.”

The calls killed off a dramatic Carney-inspired comeback, with the 2010 Dally M medal winner scoring one try and setting up another in the second half after the visitors had fallen behind 12-4 after early tries to Benji Marshall and Beau Ryan.

Carney’s individual effort just before the hour gave his side its first lead at 14-12, and when he added a penalty six minutes form time, an unlikely win looked probable.

Ryan’s chip-and-chase try three minutes from time left it locked up at fulltime as Marshall’s sideline conversion went across the face of goal.

Carney’s restart for extra time amazingly hit the crossbar and the Sharks regathered possession, but when his field goal attempt was charged down, the comeback had amounted to nothing as Marshall finished off the job.

“They’re hurting at the moment,” Flanagan said of his players.

“I can’t give them an answer … they’ve trained really hard over the off-season and to come to today, it was taken away from us.”

Tigers coach Tim Sheens sympathised with his opposite, but with 646 games under his belt, he knows what goes around comes around.

“I feel for Cronulla in that respect but we’ve had our fair share over the years of losses,” Sheens said.

“We’re all going to be upset with the officials at some stage, but I think we’ve got to look at ourselves sometimes and say we had plenty of chances both sides and bombed some chances.”

It wasn’t all smiles for the Tigers, however, with debutant fullback James Tedesco suffering a suspected season-ending ACL injury.