Queensland coach Kevin Walters has changed his tune regarding a return to State of Origin for Billy Slater after another big performance last weekend for the Melbourne Storm.

Walters created controversy before Game I by leaving Slater out of his Maroons side.

He’s going to be hard to leave out, definitely,” Walters said on NRL 360.

“Particularly after his performance again the other night (against Newcastle).

“He was so close for game one. In hindsight it’s easy, we’ve copped a bit of a spray which I knew there would be some backlash.

“When you don’t win everything becomes more open for debate, and that was the case.

“So that was the road that we travelled on and we’re certainly open for criticism, there’s no problems with that.

“And Billy, being the player that he is and the form that he’s in, yeah, he is going to be hard to ignore.”

Incumbent fullback Darius Boyd is expected to switch to the wing.