Craig Bellamy lashes Melbourne Storm detail amid Cameron Munster's successful return to NRL

The Melbourne Storm thrashed the Parramatta Eels and Cameron Munster made a successful return, but coach Craig Bellamy wasn't particularly impressed on Friday night. The Storm won 32-14 and Munster played 52 minutes off the bench, getting through unscathed after a two-month absence due to a groin injury.

But Bellamy said Melbourne will have to be way better than they played on Friday night if they want to challenge for the NRL premiership. The Storm only completed 77 per cent of their sets, making 13 errors and giving the Eels 55 per cent of possession.

Parramatta had 41 play-the-balls inside the Storm's 20-metre zone, while Melbourne only had two for the entire game. And while Bellamy was happy with the way his side defended, he was rather frustration with their inability to hold the ball.

“By our stats it was 46-2 (play the balls inside the 20)," he said after the game. "If someone told you that before a game you’d think the other side would have won. We backed that up good with our defence but we were just really untidy coming out of our own end at the start of both halves.

“We didn’t do it well in the first half and we were aware of it in the second half, but we were probably worse in the second half. They had a whole heap of field position on us so if you look on the bright side we defended that well, but you’re not going to get away with that too often if it gets repeated.”

The Storm were well below their best, but showed why they're six points clear atop the NRL ladder. And with Munster back in the halves alongside Jahrome Hughes they're only getting stronger.

"We didn't expect him to go setting up tries or running 100 metres to score tries," Bellamy said about Munster's return. "Obviously his match fitness is not great. We just wanted to ease him back in and get his timing right."

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Cameron Munster return to elevate Jahrome Hughes even higher

According to Storm captain Harry Grant, the return of Munster will only make Hughes even better. The Kiwi halfback has been the form No.7 of the competition this year, with Nathan Cleary, Mitchell Moses and Nicho Hynes spending time on the sidelines.

"Hughesy controls the game for us. You just want Munster to be going out there and playing footy," Grant said. "But I think Munster with his experience, he gets a lot of shape on as well. Creates a lot. So that is probably going to free up Jahrome also. We all appreciate what (Jahrome) does week in, week out in our team. He has so many threats in his game."

Melbourne now has arguably the league's most dangerous spine back together in Grant, Munster, Hughes and fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen. The quartet have only played two games together all year, but are primed for a deep run into September.

"There is still a lot of improvement in our roles within our spine," Grant said. "We have done a fair bit of work in that over the past couple of years. We've been unfortunate with Paps not playing too much footy last year and Munster this year. We've probably got to refine that and do a bit more work with it."

with AAP