Roosters coach Trent Robinson says the decision to penalise Nat Butcher for a high tackle on Friday night was “completely laughable” as his side overcame a poor attacking performance to grind their way to a win over the Storm.

The 14-6 result leaves them just two points behind the table-topping Panthers, but they had to survive a few nervy moments in the second half as the visitors threatened to snatch an improbable victory.

Melbourne didn’t look like scoring for the opening 55 minutes until they were gifted field position by referee Gerard Sutton who awarded them a penalty for a tackle by Butcher on Alec MacDonald that forced an error.

Replays showed there was minimal contact and even less force, with Stefano Utoikamanu scoring for the Storm two minutes later.

“How do you find that (a penalty)? Why would a referee even look at that? It was laughable. It was completely laughable,” Robinson said.

“You’ve got to defend it, and there were some things that went our way against it, but if they have an error on that and then you’re looking at that, then you’re looking at the wrong thing.”

Butcher was irate and tried to argue with the officials which prompted teammate Victor Radley to tell him to be quiet until he saw the replay.

“It went up on the big screen quickly,” he said.

“Nat was blowing up at the time. I was thinking ‘mate, be quiet Nat’ until I saw it on the big screen. I said ‘oh, you’ve probably got a right to blow up there’.

“We should have defended it, which is disappointing, but it is what it is.

“It is reassuring (for us to win those tight games). It didn’t feel great at all, but our defence just held on, which was pleasing.

“I think those games, it didn’t feel great at the end of it at full-time there, but often those close contest games can be enjoyable. We won in the end, so happy days.”

Robinson was visibly disappointed with their inability to convert chances into points, with the Roosters needing a late try from Daniel Tupou to seal it.

But a strong defensive display in the rain can build confidence heading into the finals given those matches are generally tight affairs.

“I loved the defensive performance. We didn’t execute well and it wasn’t pretty, but I felt the energy we did have we put into defence, and I felt like we controlled the game through our defence,” he said.

“There was a lot of live play, so the ball was in play a lot. There was a lot of kick return footy, both teams were going with high completion rates. If you want to play in decent games, you’ve got to play that style, so that was really pleasing.

“The execution of our attack was poor. I’ll take that. Just coming out of Origin, I’ll take that with different guys in and out in the wet.

“Of course I would have liked to have had better combinations and increased that because I thought we had enough field position there to do so. But there are also some really good signs on the defensive side of the ball.”

Originally published as ‘Completely laughable’: Trent Robinson outraged by penalty call as Roosters overcome poor attack to beat the Storm