South Sydney coach Jason Demetriou was frustrated with his players for their lack of intensity and for letting in long-range tries from turnovers in their 18-10 loss to the Storm.
Souths stormed home in the second half, but they left themselves with too much to do after a sloppy start to both halves.
“We didn’t take chances that were created,” Demetriou said.
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“AJ’s (Johnston) one in the corner if he backs himself he scores.
“But it comes back down to the first half. We just didn’t come with the intensity that we have over the last few weeks.
“You could feel it pre-game we weren’t quite where we needed to be. We were just waiting for something to happen and scoreboard pressure gets the better of you.
“Melbourne are a desperate team and they fight hard to stop you from scoring points and they came up with some last ditch efforts.
“To be fair we splintered at the back end and we started playing a bit individual and throwing offloads we don’t normally throw inside the 10 and put more pressure on ourselves to bag some points.
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“It was disappointing tonight for sure.”
Demetriou was disappointed his side couldn’t match the Storm for desperation in such a big game.
“We just lacked that steel that we have had in us the last couple of weeks,” Demetriou said.
“It was missing a bit in the first half particularly. Their first try they went 90 metres from a turnover and a cross-field kick and ball hits the ground and they were first to it and we are not on them.
“Their three tries all came from long distance where we turned the ball over inside their 10 so it is just periods where we are switching off and making life too hard for ourselves.”
Demetriou refused to use the emotion charged victory over the Sea Eagles last week as an excuse.
“Possibly but I think it is an excuse to be honest,” Demetriou said when asked about a possible hangover from the Manly clash.
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“We showed at the back end when we were coming home that we were upping our intensity and backing our defence and locking them in and in attack we were creating chances.
“We were able to do it in the last 20 minutes, but we weren’t able to front load our energy at the start.”
Demetriou conceded star fullback Latrell Mitchell needed to get more involved earlier in the game but put the loss down to his side’s defence rather than their attack.
“Back end of the first half, he started getting himself into the game a bit more,” Demetriou said.
“Across the board we were off the pace a little bit.
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“He probably needs to find his way in the game a bit earlier but it’s not about our attack, it’s about our defence.
“They went 90 metres from a turnover to our 10 metre line and put a little kick across field in and got six points.
“That’s disappointing from a decent set to turn the ball over from the start they shouldn’t be going 90 metres.”
A frustrated Cameron Murray appeared annoyed with the performance of his team.
“I can’t put my finger on it so I’m not going to sit here and make excuses,” Murray said.
“We will just review the game and try and get better for next week.”
