The likely return of Billy Slater will undoubtedly do something to help arrest Melbourne's alarming NRL form slump, but the rest of the team has been warned he can't make up for their laziness.

The Storm's four-match losing streak has already eroded their nine-win start to the season and another defeat, to St George Illawarra in Wollongong on Friday night, would leave them in danger of dropping out of the top two on the NRL table.

According to coach Craig Bellamy, there is a simple way to ensure that doesn't happen.

''Billy will help, but the other players have to start doing their jobs,'' Bellamy said.

While Slater is almost certain to play after missing the past five Storm matches due to the knee injury he suffered in State of Origin II, a final decision won't be made until Thursday.

''We're reasonably confident he'll be right this week,'' Bellamy said.

''He's very keen to get out there and help the team, but everybody else has got to help themselves.''

Having spent some time since last weekend's loss to Parramatta to reflect on his post-match claims that his players' performance was ''rubbish'' and condemning them as ''lazy'', Bellamy repeated the blast on Tuesday.

''Certainly our attack was that bad. It was rubbish,'' he said.

''Some players got lazy and they didn't need to get lazy on certain plays.

''They didn't get into position at the right time, didn't run the right line.''

Bellamy admitted he was at a loss to find any other reason for the team's slump and refused to blame the Storm's heavy Origin commitment.

''Origin is always going to be a challenging time for us,'' Bellamy said.

''But our performances haven't been where they should be.''

Assuming the Storm get over the 13th-placed Dragons, they have a relatively-comfortable run-in to the finals.

In their past five games, they don't meet any side in the top four with their most highly-ranked opposition being fifth-placed Brisbane in round 24.

- © Fairfax NZ News