To explain, if you had also watched the Crusaders and Leeds Rhinos game on Friday and are wondering what on earth has got your usual sober and analytical correspondent into such a state of fevered agitation, it had nothing to do with the action on the pitch.

No, I was watching the game in the club and won the raffle. I am now the proud owner of a new Rhinos 2010 home shirt (and it fits). The new home design is quite acceptable and far better than the away strip that we saw for the first time on Friday, with which we were not overly impressed.

So, back at the Raceourse Ground, a full house saw the Rhinos ease their way to what, on paper, looks a routine and comfortable 34-6 opening victory. But that result does the Crusaders a great injustice, as it was only in the last 15 minutes the champions really flexed their muscles.

For 65 minutes Brian Noble’s hastily assembled outfit did themselves and their coach proud. They made their intentions clear from the start when, without hesitation, they went for goal with an early penalty. Michael Witt made no mistake and the home side were 2-0 up.

Crusaders’ tactics were simple, kick deep on the last tackle and then defend as if their lives depended on it. It was proving effective until midway through the first half when a fairly speculative kick along the snow-covered ground by Brett Delaney was missed in spectacular fashion by Nick Youngquest and Scott Donald was in for the try and Kevin Sinfield opened his goals account.

It was a short-lived lead as Crusaders drew level with a try from Gareth Raynor. They almost took the lead before half-time, but Ryan Hall and Keith Senior bundled Luke Dyer into touch.

The second half followed the same pattern; Crusaders working overtime on defence and Leeds sticking to a conservatively orthodox attacking policy. It needed something special to break the deadlock and it came from Kallum Watkins, starting at full-back in place of Brent Webb.

Watkins gathered another long kick and made a few yards, but instead of going down with the ball (the sensible option) he threw out a lovely backhand offload, the ball was moved along the line, Delaney found some space and sent Danny McGuire on a long run to the line.

After that it was one-way traffic as Ali Lauitiiti went in for two tries, Delaney scored his first Super League try and Danny Buderus stabbed a nice kick through for Sinfield to touch down. The captain also finished with five goals from six attempts.

It took the Rhinos a while to get into their stride against determined opponents, but they should go into Friday’s opening home game against Castleford in good heart. The new centre pairing of Delaney and Senior looks promising, McGuire was imaginative and in the forwards Jamie Jones-Buchanan worked hard and coming off the bench there was a satisfactory debut from Greg Eastwood.