And the attitude.
They had it right in game 1 but I'm not sure they expected that Queensland wouldn't make it easy, they were up so much at halftime in game 2...wouldn't you try and be prepared.
They sort of weren't ready for a comeback and it's basically a Queensland tradition.
Apart from that you read comments in here about not understanding the lengths of the camps and bonding sessions etc.
It's quite obvious that Queenslanders are much closer to one another and that might be because of the player pool and/or Sydney rivalry.
But NSW were close in the 2000s and 90s, so they need to develop that bond more, I honestly don't see it.
There's no trust there (which is why they lost this series imo).
NSW made the same mistake the Broncos did in the GF against the Cowboys- tried to defend a lead that could be lost by a converted try. If you spoke to some of the Qld players privately, I'm sure they'd admit they couldn't believe their luck when they saw NSW trying to wind the clock down and inviting them back into the game. Qld didn't look like getting close until the Blues allowed them.
On your second point about bonding, this is the argument I made earlier that you dismissed as 'bullshit'- that traditionally, the Maroons players are far more concentrated across fewer NRL teams. You look at Qld over the past 15 years and find how many of their players (let alone their star players) have NOT come from one of these 3 teams:
Broncos
Cowboys
Storm
It means that even if a bloke like Cameron Munster comes in fresh, there's already a considerable chunk of players he knows well from spending every other week with them at the Storm. There are larger groups of blokes in the Qld team who already have that familiarity from training, hanging out and travelling on the road with each other on a near daily basis at those NRL teams. Qld may have less eligible players to choose from, but in this case the make-up of Origin actually favours them.
In NSW, the players are generally spread across the Sydney clubs, with the odd interstate player thrown into the mix. For new players, there's less blokes they know that well. Unlike Qld where Smith, Cronk etc can run the show, for NSW they need a strong figurehead who understands footballers and has that ruthless will to win. This is what made Gus great, why the Blues players loved Tommy Raudonikis and why I think Joey would be a good figurehead. Bellamy might be, if his position wasn't compromised by having so many of his Storm players in the Qld side.
NSW can't do things the same way Qld do. They'd be better off picking a 25-man provisional squad, bringing them all together a few times in the months leading up to Origin. Have a drink, have a barbecue, hold light training sessions- so that even a young bloke who's never played before can get to know the blokes in the squad, get familiar with them. Then if he's selected or gets the late call-up, he's already got that bond there.