Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy refrained from criticising the performance of referee Gavin Badger after the Storm finished on the wrong side of an 11-2 penalty count in their 12-10 NRL win over North Queensland.

In a match heavily dominated by the whistle and handling errors, the Storm coach was pleased his side overcame the lopsided count with a gritty victory.

"It seems as though they were refereeing the ruck tonight. I didn't think the 10 metres was looked at too much," Bellamy said.

"Perhaps he could have put his arm up our way and he didn't but that's the way it goes we don't want to complain about that we just want to get on and we responded."

After a tough couple of weeks on the road, including a come-from-behind victory over Canberra last Monday night, Bellamy praised the attitude of his troops.

"We played Canberra on Monday night and it was a physical game and we came up here and prepared the best we could knowing that the short turnaround was going to affect us a little bit," he said.

"The last couple of games were going to be pretty important coming into the rep season we could have quite easily come away with nothing on this trip.

"To hold them out to two tries with guys like (Johnathan) Thurston and (Matt) Bowen in their team, it is a pretty good effort."

Melbourne captain Cam Smith also refused to blame the high amount of penalties for his side's display.

"I thought a couple of them were a little bit tough but we can't blame the way we played on some decisions that went against us," Smith said.

"I thought that we responded really well.

"They had a lot of the ball for pretty much the whole game and we just seemed to be defending our try line for the whole game.

"For them to only score two tries with the calibre of players they have in their team playing at their home ground it is a very tough effort."

Despite the loss, Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston was pleased that his side was able to give the defending premiers a scare.

"We have come a long way in the last four weeks so we should be proud of the effort," Thurston said.

"But as Muzz (coach Graham Murray) said, we lacked some execution and a bit of dropped ball in the first half didn't help so we have got to sharpen a few things up in attack."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP