I HAD always regarded The Noble Art as the roughest, toughest and most vicious sport of the lot.

Two boxers slugging it out toe-to-toe and within the confines of what is a tiny ring arena is always a recipe for mayhem and magic –- depending on your nervous disposition.

But I’ve changed my mind. Something I thought I’d never do.

The new war zone of competitive sport is now the playing fields of Rugby Union – and significantly so since it adopted its professional status.

Its 15 combatants (or are they gladiators?) are all invariably built like brick outhouses with a body muscle density, which Mike Tyson would have been proud of.

It is all high-octane, frenzied, physical action and the underhand tactics of what goes on in the scrums and mauls is nothing short of savagery.

And don’t we love every moment of it – although a certain William Webb Ellis of Rugby School will be rocking in his grave at the barbarism of it all.

That’s why the streets of Weymouth, Portland and Dorchester will be virtually empty this Saturday morning when England take on France in the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals in Auckland, New Zealand (kick off 8.30am).

I cannot wait – and nor can Chloe Weldon.

She is a 19-year-old trainee accountant with Advoco on The Granby.

“I have watched every minute of every game,” she says. “I love it. It is so physical. And the hammering they give to each other is, well, frightening.

“But the players never moan or complain.

They just pick themselves off the floor and start bashing each other again. And perhaps I shouldn’t say this but . . . when I see blood on that England shirt it makes me feel so proud of our boys.”

It was a certain anonymous chancellor of Cambridge University who coined the immortal phrase: “Football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.” OK pal.

But if only we could witness how rugby has now developed into a sport with super-fit young men at an athletic peak punishing their bodies into exhaustion. No wonder it makes for compulsive viewing and not a little patriotic jingoism. And why not?

Chloe added: “My fiancee George is a footie nut. But when I watch the games with him on TV all they do is fall down at the slightest knock and roll over a dozen times. Or try to get an opponent booked or sent off. It is not very manly like rugby.

“I must be honest. I don’t understand the rules (Laws actually, Chloe, and nor do I but we both know what a try is). I don’t care anyway. It always makes my nerves tingle.”

If I had a pound for every time I have been entertained – and slightly inebriated! – at Twickenham I’d be a very rich man because international rugby is still THE social occasion when the west car park is champagne party time before and long after the match.

And, most significantly, rival supporters actually drink, laugh and banter with each other in all the pubs and without the slightest hint of bother. Unlike their soccer counterparts.

Back to Chloe: “Martin Johnson must play Toby Flood on Saturday,” she adds very seriously. “Everybody loves Jonny Wilkinson but his time is up.

“His kicking has been awful. And if we are going to win we must stop giving away silly penalties.”

Roll on Saturday!

FOOTIENOTE: Before I forget, England’s pampered, mega-rich footballers only need a point against Montenegro tomorrow night to secure a place in Euro 2012. B-O-R-I-N-G.