WHILE it was a season that ultimately ended in heartbreak, Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan is adamant the Sharks are good enough to go even better in 2016.
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The NRL season ended on Sunday night as the North Queensland Cowboys won their maiden premiership, securing a 17-16 golden-point victory against Brisbane in what will be remembered as one of the greatest grand finals of all time.
After a disappointing start to the campaign that saw them lose their opening four games, Cronulla played some of their strongest football in recent memory to surge home and finish sixth, before falling to this year's premiers North Queensland in the semi-finals.
Impressive doubles over heavyweights the Cowboys, Roosters and South Sydney were mixed in with last-minute losses to the Warriors and Gold Coast and a frustrating loss to Manly in the final game of the regular season.
But Flanagan said there was plenty for Sharks fans to look forward to in 2016.
"I know the older boys will be a year older but the younger boys like Birdy and Val have a year of NRL under their belt," he said.
"Obviously [the players] all know each other [now]. We're in a much better position than we were. We don't need to change a lot.
"At the end of 2014 we'd won the wooden spoon and there was a lot of work to be done.
"Hopefully, we can start off where we finished in that the attitude, culture and leadership we've tried to build is already there."
Flanagan said the goal for his team was always to make the semi-finals but the manner of their semi-final loss to North Queensland still stung.
"I always thought we were good enough for the semis and where we finished you'd have to say it was a reasonably good year," he said.
"Near the end there I thought we were a chance for top four. You need a little bit of luck but obviously we wanted to play better than we did when we went out.
"We didn't put our best foot forward in that last game and that hurt the most."
Flanagan named the golden-point win over the Gold Coast, Jack Bird's debut against the Roosters and Cronulla's win over Souths in horrendous conditions in round seven as his most memorable, while the close loss to Manly in the final round was the most frustrating.
As for 2016? The goal is simple.
"We want to go a couple of games better," he said. "We got to the second week of the finals but we didn't play the way we wanted to.
"I know we can be even better and we'll make sure we've got two more games in us next year."