Repeated knee injury victim Brent Tate has warned Melbourne superstar Billy Slater against getting caught up in the hype surrounding his bid to play in Wednesday night’s State of Origin decider.

Slater, who suffered a posterior cruciate ligament injury in Origin II in Sydney 15 days ago, has been working behind the scenes with the Storm’s medical team in the hope of playing in Petero Civoniceva’s 33rd and final Origin at Suncorp Stadium.

Slater has to give Queensland coach Mal Meninga an answer before the weekend.

A genuinely-concerned Tate, who has fought his way back from a third career knee reconstruction, is worried the champion fullback could put his season at risk if he lets his heart rule his head.

Tate, who has his own niggling injury issues after quitting training early on Wednesday, knows from experience that knee injuries can be dicey.

“I don’t think Billy will play if he’s not right – I hope not,” said Tate.

“That’s a decision Billy’s got to make. The tricky thing with knees is that when one ligament goes, it puts pressure on other places (in the knee).

“You don’t want to be going into these sort of games not being 100 per cent, not only for the team but for Billy himself and his own welfare.

“As I said, when you’ve done one ligament, it’s putting pressure and strain on other things and that’s when you can run into trouble.

“If Billy comes into camp, he’s going to be 100 per cent. I have no doubt about that.”

Tate’s fears were echoed by senior forward Sam Thaiday who said: “If he needed some advice, I’d tell him to go with his head and not his heart.”

Tate said he could understand Slater’s burning desire to play, especially in such a massive game.

“I don’t think the magnitude has been lost on anyone, the size of this game,” he said.

Tate said the Blues’ confidence and belief would be sky high after their Sydney victory to square the series.

“Their talk, the way they’re talking is a pretty clear indication of their confidence,” he said.

“But there’s a lot of confidence in our group and, from the get-go in this camp, there’s been a real steel and we’ll be ready come Wednesday.”

Tate didn’t hide from the fact NSW had been better than Queensland in starting both games.

“I think they were,” he said.

“We’ve had to come from behind in both games.

“They’ve put points on us early and we just haven’t executed to the best of our ability.

“We’re a great side and we can get ourselves out of bad situations but we weren’t able to do that in the second one.

“That’s the challenge for us on Wednesday night.