Penrith coach Matt Elliott has blamed Sunday's 25-10 NRL loss to Melbourne on handling errors and kicking away good possession.

The defeat, which was the Panthers' third in four home games this season, was an improved showing, but despite plenty of effort from his side, Elliott lamented the number of errors.

"What we need to be conscious of are the things that we were in control of," he said.

"We came up with some big plays that cost us ... some unforced errors in attack.

"We had them rocking at times and (then) did stuff like kick the ball on play three, played out the front on some plays when we needed to play out the back and spilled the ball on plays three and four.

"When you play like a team like Melbourne, it's about building pressure over a prolonged period and we didn't."

Elliott, who is off-contract at the end of this season, and has been under great pressure to keep his job, despite taking the side to the finals last year for the first time since 2004.

However, he refused to rip into his side, saying their efforts had been fantastic, although he conceded he needed to make players responsible for their mistakes.

"I'm not frustrated but I need to really get onto some key players to make them understand how important those plays are," he said.

"My job is to make people account for it. I'm not going to rant and rave about it but we're better than that.

"Our collective effort was fantastic ... but our individual execution cost us."

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