Bellamy knows Storm's 22-year streak is under threat

Coach Craig Bellamy has ramped up the pressure on his Melbourne players not to let their unrivalled NRL round-one record slip when they host Parramatta on Sunday afternoon.

The Storm are unbeaten in the opening fixture since Bellamy took the reins in 2003 - racking up 21 successive wins - with 2004 not counting as they had a first-round bye.

The Eels almost snapped the streak in 2023, only for Storm skipper Harry Grant to score a try in golden point to secure a 16-12 victory.

Bellamy said the record belonged to the players and was one that meant a lot to those who previously wore the Storm jersey.

"It's not really my record, it's the players' record," the coach said at their captain's run on Saturday in Melbourne.

"I'm sitting up the coaches' box, I don't have a whole heap to do with it.

"I know the players, especially our old boys, they used to hold being ready for round one pretty close to their heart.

"To perform well in round one, that was really important to them so hopefully it's important to these guys as well."

After two heavy pre-season losses to the Warriors and North Queensland, with Melbourne conceding an uncharacteristic 72 points, a disappointed Bellamy said their defence needed to improve to get the better of the Eels.

"Probably the thing that I'm not quite sure of is our form in the trials - our defence wasn't great so we've worked a bit on that.

"If we can fix that up, hopefully we'll perform a bit better tomorrow.

"It's important to be on it with your defence early in the season - the attacks sometimes take a little bit but we should have defended better than what we did, so we've had two weeks to hopefully correct it."

Appearing in major doubt for round one after his knee blew up, star fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen will start against the Eels which should help organise their defence.

But Bellamy didn't believe that was their major issue.

"Obviously that's a big part but I don't think that's our main problem, though, defensively. It's actually being keen to get into the tackle, I think that was a bit more of an issue.

"But certainly with his experience, he'll have us well organised, especially on their tryline."

The Eels have been rocked by the loss of chief playmaker Mitchell Moses for the first six rounds with a foot injury but Bellamy expected them to be well prepared under their new coach, former Storm assistant Jason Ryles.

"He did a great job here as a coach; we were sorry to lose him as a coach, but we knew he was going to move on to bigger and better things.

"The one thing about him, I think they've worked on their play the balls a lot, playing the balls quickly and perhaps on the other side working hard on slowing down the opposition.

"That's one of the things that I've noticed that will be different from Parramatta last year to this year."