Craig Bellamy's ominous Cameron Munster call on eve of Origin

Cameron Munster may have been "timing his run into Origin", Craig Bellamy has joked.

The Melbourne Storm coach spoke glowingly, and ominously, of the champion playmaker on Saturday night, after his destructive outing in a thumping win over Parramatta.

Munster's form this season has drawn criticism, from the gun five-eighth included, but he turned in a blinder as Melbourne carved out a 34-8 Magic Round win on the cusp of the State of Origin opener.

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The 31-year-old chalked up two line break assists, set up two tries and scored a try as the Storm banked their second win on the bounce. He also made 119 metres from 14 carries and broke out of four tackles.

"Munster is probably his harshest judge, to be quite honest," Bellamy said in his post-game press conference.

"He was tremendous out there tonight.

"I think he's sort of been building probably the last month. He probably didn't have the start of the season that he wanted, and we wanted, but I think the last month he's slowly but surely [come along].

"He might have been just timing his run into Origin."

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For his try, Munster scooted onto a Jahrome Hughes pass on the right edge in the 47th minute and shot through a hole in the Parramatta defence.

Bellamy, as a NSW Blue at heart, is wary.

"Munster always scares you actually, to be quite honest," the legendary coach said, drawing laughter in the press conference room.

"In different ways at times.

"But he's just such an instinctive footy player that he can pull something out of nothing. I think any teams that play against him, they've always sort of got their antennas up waiting for the unexpected."

Sitting next to Bellamy in the press conference, captain Harry Grant was sporting a noticeable gash beside his left eye.

"I think it was one of Josh King's scuffles," he said with a grin when asked about it.

"Was he picking on you too?" Bellamy joked.

"He picked on all the small Parramatta players."

Melbourne dropped seven games in a row this season – their first losing streak of that length in history – but have since strung together wins against Wests Tigers and the Eels.

Bellamy was rapt with his side's resolve in defence in the Magic Round win.

"It was a reasonably scrappy game ... but I was really happy with our defence, especially on our try line or inside our 20," Bellamy said.

"So I thought we got a bit more consistent with that tonight, and I think we made plenty of tackles down there, so that was promising for us.

"We made a lot of errors obviously, especially in the first half. The second half was a little bit better, but we're fortunate that Parramatta made a fair few errors as well.

"So as I said, it was a pretty scrappy game, but I was really happy with our defence."