Ugly Eels far from electric in holding off Storm

The two competition points saved them from total embarrassment, but even Parramatta’s players were forced to admit today’s 24-22 win over Melbourne was not the stuff of NRL premiership contenders.

But two points it was, enough to lift the Eels back into the top eight as well as proving there’s no such thing as a gimme in the game any more, not even against a side robbed of nine of its best players and their coach due to representative commitments.

“You take those wins,” halfback Brett Finch said.

“We worked our arse off last week and against Brisbane to lose in heart-breaking losses, you don’t get two points for playing well in those games.

“We didn’t play well today and I’m sure we’re going to hear about it all week.

“Today we were off but … we’ll take the two points because no-one’s going to care about this in a month’s time.”

But care about it they will if the Eels’ performances don’t improve, because another month of this will see them slip out of premiership contention.

Not only were the Storm without nine players, and nine of their best at that, they were also on the end of some dubious refereeing from Ben Cummins on a crusade to protect Eels kicker Brett Finch.

Parramatta received three penalties for Finch being taken out late and they proved costly; their last two tries – to Joel Reddy in the 32nd minute and Krisnan Inu in the 64th – coming off the back of the final two indiscretions.

“It hurts you when you get penalised like that, I think it was about five/one the penalty count (in the first half),” Storm assistant Michael Maguire said.

“The one with Sinbad (Kali) when he got penalised for it, I’d be interested to have a look at that one again, I think he hardly touched him and Finchy fell over there.”

Even Finch was forced to admit he may have been a touch lucky.

“None of them was illegal, I had no drama with it,” he said.

“One of them I was waiting for a dropout out, I didn’t even know we got the penalty.

“There’s a big thing now on protecting the kickers and if they’re late they’re late, you would have thought they’d learn from the first one.

“We’ll take it when we can get them, we had one go against us last week. You cop them on the chin when they don’t come your way and take them when they do.”

The Storm blasted out to a early 10-0 lead before three tries in the space of 12 minutes gave the home side an 18-10 lead.

Melbourne hit back after the break with Sika Manu grabbing is second of the afternoon before Inu looked like he had sealed it when he dived over 16 minutes from time.

Then, for the second time in the match, the Eels got over the line only to be denied for an obstruction before Cooper Cronk set up a tighter finish than anyone had expected as he danced over from close range.