Newcastle coach Brian Smith called for an overhaul of the use of the video referee after his courageous Knights side were cruelled by the third eye in the Eels' stunning 24-23 golden point NRL win at Parramatta Stadium.

Eels fullback Luke Burt slotted over the match-winning field goal three-and-a-half minutes into extra time, with Newcastle centre Keith Lulia an undeserving villain after his knock on moments earlier handed Parramatta a scrum win and Burt an easy shot at glory.

While Burt had the final say, Eels skipper Nathan Cayless was the unlikely hero when he matched Jarrod Mullen's earlier field goal with a one-pointer of his own to send the game into extra time.

"Everyone else was missing them so ...," Cayless said.

"It's my first one ever. I tell the boys to keep passing it to me but they won't. It just happened ... I just kicked it."

But Smith was livid at the use of the video referee, taking some gloss off a thrilling match and a courageous effort from Eels second rower Nathan Hindmarsh, who played the whole game just days after his father's death.

"There was one dubious one that went against us that led indirectly to two tries before we touched the ball again and there were two in the second half where I believe the referee came up with the wrong a call and didn't have a look," Smith said.

"They (the players) were begging him to have a look and they didn't.

"I'm not blaming (referee) Tony (Archer), I think he's a fine referee, I'm not blaming (Steve Clark) in the box tonight, I'm just saying the system needs to be addressed so that we don't just get some of the calls right.

"I'm hurting like hell - we had two points there we could have iced."

Leading 12-10 late in the first half and about to have the ball 15 metres out from the Parramatta line following a Taulima Tautai knock on, the Knights had their world rocked by video referee Clark.

Clark awarded the home side a penalty for an alleged strip, though Taulima's ball security left plenty to be desired as an errant Scott Dureau elbow knocked the ball loose.

Eric Grothe and Brett Finch scored tries in the space of two minutes on the back of the reversed call to take a 20-12 lead at the break.

The third official was then in the spotlight for its non use, Archer ruling a knock on against Knights skipper Danny Buderus, despite having the ball poked from behind by Eels centre Jarryd Hayne.

Archer was unable to reverse his decision because there was no infringement from the Eels.

Despite the adversity the Knights clawed their way back, Wes Naiqama capitalising on another Taulima spill to score a fortuitous try before centre partner Lulia put the visitors in front when he crossed for his second after some nice hands from Kurt Gidley and Cory Patterson.

Parramatta set up a thrilling finish when Jesse Royal was penalised for a high tackle in front of his own posts, Burt steering over the simple penalty attempt to lock it up 22-22.

While Smith was hurting, Eels counterpart Michael Hagan was grateful, though his delight was tempered by a potentially serious pectoral injury to hooker Mark Riddell.

"We probably did it the hard way to be fair but the boys still hung in there at the end when they had too and were still good enough to sneak home," he said.

"We'll gladly take the two and move onto next week."

As for Cayless's late heroics, Hagan said: "It was fairly much needed at that point.

"He keeps telling me how much he practices and how it's part of his game, he never thought it was an issue."

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