Playing teams after their bye, advantage for Storm?

[NZ Storm]

There's a fairly widely held assumption that teams coming off the bye come out of the blocks a little rusty.

The stats from the last 2 seasons show that teams coming off the bye have a 23-1-34 (W-D-L) record. So this supports the assumption as roughly 60% of the teams have lost after their bye.

I've had a look through the 2004 draw & these are how many times each team meets a team coming off the bye:

5 - Broncos & Storm
3 - Knights, Sharks & Dragons
2 - Raiders, Sea Eagles & Warriors
1 - Cowboys, Eels, Bulldogs & Rabbitohs
0 - Tigers, Roosters & Panthers

So will this little loop-hole be to our advantage?

It's a little strange how both of last year's Grand Finalists will not meet a single team coming off the bye all season.

Just for the record, the teams we have a chance of catching offguard are: Warriors, Eels, Knights, Rabbitohs & Sharks.

But the Warriors & Knights get the chance for a get square because they are the two teams waiting for us after our byes.

[simo]

5 team's coming of the bye....at 60% losing rate.
Ill take them odds anyday, thats an advantage for the Storm for mine.

[Dani_]

storm were the first team to win coming off a bye in this season just gone ....weren't they??

[NZ Storm]

Raiders were the first team to win after a bye last year. They had the bye in Round 6 & beat the Bulldogs 26-22 in Round 7.

After our byes we lost 44-28 to the Knights in Round 4 and beat Manly 40-10 in Round 26.