Melbourne captain Cameron Smith admitted the Storm may be playing for their season against Brisbane on Friday night after crashing 24-12 to Sydney Roosters at Allianz Stadium.

The Storm went into the match with the chance of cementing a top four berth and appeared in control for 65 minutes but conceded three late tries to remain stranded on 30 points.

If Canterbury, North Queensland and the Warriors win their remaining matches of the season, Melbourne will need to beat the Broncos at AAMI Stadium to secure a place in the top eight.

"It is a big game for us next week – the Broncos are playing for their season and in fact after we lost tonight we are probably playing for our season because if we drop another one and results go against us we might not even be in the finals," Smith said.

"We have got to learn from what we did wrong tonight. There wasn't a whole heap we did wrong but those small things can hurt you at this time of the year."

Storm coach Craig Bellamy said his players were in control for most of the match and would "fight hard" if they made the finals.

However, Melbourne had lost their way after falling behind 14-12 when Mitchell Pearce scored from a misguided pass by Smith to winger Sisa Waqa in a worrying sign for the NRL's most dominant team of the past nine years.

"We had a lot of momentum during vast periods of the game and we just made a mistake and we got behind and then all of a sudden we made a couple more mistakes just trying to do things that we didn't really have to do," Bellamy said.

"In 15 minutes we probably made as many mistakes as we did the whole game. We didn't have to change too much when Pearce scored that try but we got a little impatient, I think.

"But there were some good signs there and hopefully we can make it, and if we can, hopefully we perform well and give a little bit of cheek."