Parramatta 24 Melbourne 22

PARRAMATTA know they let themselves down yesterday.

They are just hoping that, in the greater scheme of things, it isn't anything more than a glitch that won't matter at the serious end of the competition. At the end of the day they still got the two points.

But it became a much closer call than anyone anticipated, with Melbourne halfback Cooper Cronk racing through a gap to score a 77th-minute try, fullback Steve Turner converting and then the Storm launching one last raid on the Eels in the final minute in an attempt to win the game. That charge ended with Cronk's kick to the corner going into touch ahead of the chasers.

Parramatta were playing at home against a Melbourne outfit that was minus nine State of Origin stars. The Storm had lost 36-12 to St George Illawarra before Origin I and 18-0 to Gold Coast before Origin II. Both the Dragons and the Titans had more players out to Origin for those games than Parramatta did yesterday, although the Eels had a couple of players out injured to add to the unavailability of NSW representative Jarryd Hayne.

Taking all of that into consideration, you can look at the performance of the Eels one of two ways - either it was a chance for them to make a statement by killing off a vulnerable opponent, only to leave a big question mark over themselves by just falling in for the win, or they fell into the trap of thinking it was going to be easy and weren't as mentally strong as they should have been.

If the Eels had been consistently getting over the top of opponents this season, it would be easier to accept the latter explanation, but they haven't. They have been up and down. So, while there may have been contributing circumstances, what happened yesterday can't be written off too easily. We've still to be convinced that Parramatta have got what it takes.

Eels coach Michael Hagan wasn't too hard on his team. He described the performance as "scratchy" and said it was hard for the players to escape the fact they were playing against significantly under-strength opposition. He felt the previous week's tough game against Cronulla may have left his team a bit flat as well.

"It's one of those difficult games and difficult weeks, with everyone talking about it [Melbourne missing so many players]," Hagan said. "It's hard not to take some notice of it subconsciously. But they [the Storm] have improved with a couple of games together [before Origin games] and they've still got Cronk."

But Parramatta captain Nathan Cayless, when asked whether he considered it reasonable that most people thought the Eels should have won comfortably under the circumstances, replied: "I don't think that's unfair. We've got most of our players on deck and we've played some really good games lately, but today we let ourselves down. We didn't play to our standards, which was disappointing.

"We needed to win that one to keep ourselves ticking over, but I think it's one that we'll forget about pretty quickly. It's frustrating that it got too close for comfort, but you have got to give your opposition some respect. They played well, with a simple game plan. We let ourselves down with some errors and kept letting them back in the game."

Melbourne scored the first 10 points, but Parramatta scored the next 18 and at that stage, approaching half-time, it looked as though the Eels would add to their advantage and coast to an easy win. But, in the second half, the Storm came back to 18-16 down and the Eels scored the next try before the Storm came calling again. Whichever way you look at it, that wasn't how it was supposed to happen.

Parramatta halfback Brett Finch, his team's best player yesterday, said that in a couple of recent games the Eels had worked hard and played well only to get nothing to show for it in narrow losses to Brisbane and Cronulla, so they were entitled to accept yesterday's win and move on.

"We'll take the two points, because no one is going to care about this in a month's time," Finch said.

He may turn out to be right, but only as long as Parramatta aren't playing like this.

PARRAMATTA 24 (K Inu J Reddy T Tautai T Williams tries L Burt 4 goals) bt MELBOURNE 22 (S Manu 2 C Cronk J Tomane tries S Turner 2 C Cronk goals) at Parramatta Stadium. Referee: B Cummins. Crowd:  12,597.