Scroll down for a slideshow of the evolution of Chabal's beard

The Frenchwoman - she's sophisticated, she's cultured, she never gets fat. Apparently she also has a thing for old-fashioned caveman appeal, if the recent popularity of Sébastien Chabal is anything to go by.

Chabal, the 6ft 3ins, 18st forward on the French team, is credited with bringing thousands of women - les Chabalistes - to the game. He's garnered attention for his bone-crushing tackles (watch his monstrous tackle on Chris Masoe and his full-blooded charge at Ali Williams) along with his mountain-man beard and Hagrid hair. Altogether the effect is that of a marauding beast let loose on the pitch.

He's become the darling of the French team, appearing on the cover of Paris Match, accompanied by images of women wearing Chabal T-shirts at a game in Cardiff. Fans create YouTube video odes to his magnetism. Frenchwoman Muriel Tournadre encapsulates his appeal on her blog: Car il incarne le mythe de l’homme fort - because he incarnates the myth of the strong man.

Why we love Sebastien Chabal

The bulging thigh muscles, the throbbing biceps, the "just back from the hunt" grooming? What's not to love, asks a female rugby fan

Multimedia

• Pictures: Sebastien Chabal's beard

BACKGROUND

• Chabal: France's human wrecking ball

An unscientific poll of several Frenchwomen shows he is a topic of the moment. Marie-Laure Colléaux, a Frenchwoman who lives in Ville de Neuilly-sur-Seine, sees the appeal, except for his rangy mane. "But the rest is irresistible."

Despite his caveman looks, Chabal is actually very gentle and shy, his wife Annick told Paris Match. "When I think that people imagine that Seb deliberately set out to look like Attila the Hun, it makes me smile," she said. "No one is more sensitive and withdrawn than him." The player reportedly grew his beard and man on a bet while his wife was pregnant with their two-year-old daughter.

And like fashion's Agyness Deyn, whose blonde crop has become her trademark this season, Chabal's hirsuteness has turned him from conventionally attractive to the "Me Tarzan, you Jane" stuff of fantasy. This despite the departure from the typical French male sex symbol - think the sleek Alain Delon or the more recent Thierry Henry.

"Chabal is not the French woman's typical ideal man. French women as a whole don't go for the virile, prehistoric, Neanderthal look," says Times Paris correspondent Adam Sage. "Men tend to be well-dressed and clean shaven. French women like men who can cry and show their emotions."

But Emmanuelle Marvy, a Frenchwoman from Lyon who lives in London, disagrees. "Frenchwomen have been moving away from the plastic-looking man." She cites the enduring popularity of the actor Jean Reno, with his "big nose": "Women melt around him."

Yet as for the appeal of Chabal, the hulking he-man hasn't won her over yet. "He's scary-looking, I think," she says. Which, if you want to scare, say, England in the semi-finals, is a good thing.

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