State of NSW: Blues chief adviser Peter Sterling said an inquiry was needed into why the Blues did not seem to trust each other in defence. Credit:Getty Images Having fewer teams in Sin City – 8½ is far too many, they are cannibalising each other – seems beyond the sport as long as they are artificially propped up by leagues clubs. So how about a cap on the number of events each year in Sydney – so the market isn't saturated? That would assuage the traditionalists who seem to run things, while improving the national footprint the game doesn't know it needs. Joey bake fair but simplistic, says Sterlo

NSW chief adviser Peter Sterling says Andrew Johns' summation of what the Blues did wrong on Wednesday night, while reasonable, is "a bit simplistic for me". The eighth Immortal, you'll remember, slated NSW for not targeting the injured Johnathan Thurston. "JT goes out and stands inside the winger," Sterling said at the weekend. "You don't want to go near the sidelines." Speaking on Triple M, Sterling said an inquiry was needed into why the Blues did not seem to trust each other in defence. "On day one in camp we put forward a philosophy for what we do when we have the football and what we do when we don't have the football. That is based around trust and if you have a look at the situations where we got into trouble that [trust] wasn't evident. "We need to find out why it wasn't there, especially defensively. In all three [Queensland] tries, decisions that we made – which weren't ones we'd been working towards the entire campaign – cost us dearly." Double jeopardy for Barba

Normally Set Of Six would regard the case of Ben Barba and St Helens as open and shut. Saints are appealing what's left of Barba's 12-match ban for cocaine use. As much as anything, rugby league lacks unity internationally. If you're suspended from Group 16, you shouldn't be able to play in Serbia. If you can't play in the Lord Derby Cup, then you can't play in the Fox Memorial Shield. But the NRL inexplicably slapped Barba with a ban that only applied in its own competition, lumbering everyone else with a procedural nightmare. If League Central now wants Super League to observe that ban, then Barba can't be expected to serve it all over again if he signs with an NRL team. One suspects the delays in Saints' appeal being heard might lead it to a compromise – six games in each hemisphere. That would be expedient but strangely fair. Tail angry over lack of dog-wagging rights

The presence of Gold Coast and Wests Tigers on our TV screens on Friday night has been held up by some as evidence that fixed scheduling – deciding at the start of the year which games are on which days – is a terrible idea. But surely in a serious professional sports league, every game should be an event (see item one) and if you're a rights holder, you are paying for "an NRL game", which it is then your job to sell. You cover the competition we give you. Allowing broadcasters to change the schedule to suit themselves should be the domain of only desperate, broke sports administrations. The Super League match on Thursday night was last versus second last, while St Helens, Wigan and Warrington weren't on TV at all over the weekend because Sky undertakes to give all teams exposure during the course of the season. JT shot JFK It's official: Origin is now so good that thousands of conspiracy theorists refuse to believe it's not scripted. That's right, the mob that reckons chemtrails are poisoning angels and Harold Holt runs a thriving Guangzhou lamington shop also refuse to believe random events in a game could create as much pathos, drama and spectacle as we saw last Wednesday night.

So they're flooding social media with zany theories about head office ordering a Queensland victory. Presumably they also ordered Johnathan Thurston's shoulder injury so he could kick his sideline conversion and Jarryd Hayne not to pass to Brett Morris. Everyone's in on it! As Set of Six said elsewhere last week, why would you continue to watch a sport you believe is fixed? If you're calling out people over their integrity, have some yourself and don't support an industry you believe to be deceitful and corrupt. All hail Laurie The ground was packed on Saturday afternoon for Penrith-North Queensland, not because everyone had bought a ticket anticipating Johnathan Thurston's 300th game but because the Laurie Spina Shield under 11s carnival was being held there, too. Laurie, the Cowboys' first captain in 1995, drives hours to every home match to work on the sidelines for the ABC and was on duty this weekend too, despite his many presentation duties.