It started in 2011 as the O'Farrell-Baird show. Mike Baird as treasurer did a good job and built enough of a profile that when he rose to Premier it was basically a one-man band. His transport minister then treasurer Gladys Berejiklian did well too, although her public profile was subdued.
Now the state's voters have an even more mysterious double act: Ms Berejiklian as leader alongside right-wing quid pro quo Liberal deputy Dominic Perrottet.
While the Herald supported the factional deal that elevated Mr Perrottet at age 33, the economist-lawyer is hardly known outside his party. Having toiled away in the backrooms of Finance for a few years, he has served his apprenticeship and will be the face of the NSW economy as Treasurer from Monday.
But add in the relatively unknown freshman Nationals leader, Deputy Premier and Regional Minister John Barilaro, and it's a Neville Nobody leadership trio to most NSW voters.
Throw in the absence of old guarders there since 2011 – Mr Baird, Jillian Skinner, Duncan Gay and especially the much-respected Adrian Piccoli – and the nation's key state suddenly has a second-term government on trainer wheels.
Ironically, Labor's Luke Foley is starting to look like the experienced leader of a stable alternative government.
With Pauline Hanson and minor parties threatening to wreak havoc on the Coalition just as the Shooters Fishers and Farmers did in the Orange byelection last November, the line-up Ms Berejiklian announced in Queanbeyan on Sunday placates the Nationals. It hands them more control of portfolios which affect regional areas where economic growth has lagged Sydney.
But the ministry includes risky picks in the areas where Mr Baird was vulnerable: where his successor has to break from the past and perform better before the March 2019 election.
Former attorney-general Gabrielle Upton in particular takes the hospital pass of local government from Paul Toole. Mergers remain poorly explained, open to legal challenge and electoral lightning rods for independent and Hanson-like rivals. Protests against amalgamations marred the cabinet announcement.
Some expected the experienced minister Brad Hazzard, aged 65, to follow Ms Skinner, 72, and Mr Gay, 66, by quitting politics. But Mr Hazzard has been handed the tough health gig which has been beset by hospital bungles. Dealing with unions and launching the northern beaches hospital in his electorate of Wakehurst will test him.
Sports Minister Stuart Ayres, who still bears the burden of having stood alongside Mr Baird when he banned then backflipped on greyhound racing, enters dangerous territory in a new portfolio of Minister for the Westconnex. The job is a sign of how risky the Liberals consider the motorway for marginal seats.
Former Nationals leader and greyhound ban backer Troy Grant survives as Police Minister despite festering disputes across the force's leadership. Ms Berejiklian, though, has given the conservative Corrections Minister David Elliott an extra new portfolio of Counter Terrorism, reflecting some lack of public confidence in how state and federal agencies would respond to future incidents.
Fellow conservative Anthony Roberts, whose connections with radio host Alan Jones are legendary, gets planning and the task of delivering more affordable housing. Mr Roberts takes over from Rob Stokes, the man Mr Baird once called the best qualified person for the planing job.
Mr Stokes takes over Education from Mr Piccoli – whose National Party dumped him from cabinet. The changeover comes just as the federal government hardens its position against Gonski funding and picks a fight with teacher unions over greater focus on phonics and testing in infants schools. If the 43-year-old Mr Stokes can deliver on education, he looms as the frontrunner to replace the Premier should she falter.
Ms Berejiklian has the potential to be a talented leader. The biggest risk is that she will be more focused on the views of shock jocks rather than doing what she knows is right.
Still, her ministers are younger than we've come to expect and the underperformers in the O'Farrell-Baird years have been given one last chance to prove themselves.
The first test will come within weeks at a byelection to replace Ms Skinner in her electorate of North Shore. The final verdict will come in barely two years.