NSW 'play well' when QLD have a shocker. When the QLD team hunker down, the Blues score no points. When QLD fook up, they fix it. When QLD fook up NSW congratulate themselves. NSW have a vastly inflated opinion of just how good they are. Really NSW are only as good as the degree that QLD let them off the hook.
Because the reality doesn't match the fantasy, NSW think they've won a series when they've only won one game. NSW lost 2017 game 2 on the mental level. The scoreboard is merely a reflection on NSW' hubris multiplied by poor decision making.
NSW' problems since 2005 have flowed down from the upper levels of the support mechanism and infected the players. Most of whom are selected for all the wrong attributes. The blind(upper levels) leading the blind(wrong players). Not "Let's select better players" alone(though that is needed). The decision makers are losing the games before the players ever reach the stadiums.
The big problem with the supposed reassessment after the 2010 whitewash was the decision to imitate(in such a mangled fashion) supposed tactics that QLD were deemed to be employing. Go Back and recall what was being touted as rectifying strategy to turn around NSW run of Origin series losses. It was incorrect. Full of mistaken assumptions and half baked conclusions.
QLD are winning because of a combination of better upper structure and better selection. This translates to great players who make better decisions on the field. NSW only seem to shine when QLD take their eye off the game. When QLD play to their structures, NSW don't get a look in.
