This weekend will see the conclusion of the Six Nations. I’m reliably informed that England have an outside chance of winning. I can reliably inform you that I really don’t care. I don’t mean that I don’t care if England win or not – although I don’t – I mean that I don’t care about rugby.

I must admit that much of my antipathy towards rugby union, as with golf, is class based. And yet I love cricket, a sport as elitist and exclusive as they come. Just take a trip to Lord’s. My friend Jim jokes that I have a “blind spot.” Perhaps he’s right, but I like to think I love cricket despite the fact that it is often played and watched and governed by the over-privileged. Likewise, my dislike of rugby goes deeper than inverse snobbery.

It’s the same when footballers are compared to rugby players. Yes, rugby players show a greater respect for the referee, and they don’t dive, but the quality of a sport isn’t determined by the character and behaviour of those playing it. Sure, it would be nice if footballers didn’t try to con the ref – just as it would be nice if batsmen walked – but, essentially, football remains a better game than rugby regardless of who plays. Indeed, much of my loathing of rugby stems from the fact that it is not football.

Maybe I’m just bitter at having been made to play rugby at school during what I had always known as the football season, just as I resented having to do athletics during the cricket season. I’ve written before that I find it hard to like things I’m no good at, and there is an element of that in my dislike of rugby. I’d like to think, however, that there’s more to it than that.

So, what is it about rugby that I find so dull, so incomprehensible – so unlike football? I think it boils down to a lack of flow. Even in a dull game of football the ball is always moving. A tackle doesn’t stop the game unless it is a foul. A fussy ref or a dirty team are said to spoil the game. By that logic, rugby is spoilt.

Consider, also, the differing attitudes to putting the ball out of play. In football, it might be an error or a last-ditch clearance. In rugby, it is an attacking ploy. How can deliberately stopping the game make for exciting viewing? And it’s not as if the restarts are particularly satisfactory. Scrums and lineouts are forever being retaken, and to me seem like an excuse to get half the players out of the way. Maybe they should just have fewer players. And a round ball. And stop hand-balling it.

What I find most irritating about watching rugby, however, is the sense that it could be so much better. When it is good it is very good. Think of that try by the British Lions back in the day. But those moments of skill and excitement are so rare. Most of the time the ball is lost under a pile of gym-freaks or being punted aimlessly back and forth or out of play.

It’s just not football.