When I saw him, he was face to face with the haka. He stood a stone’s throw from a throng of warbling Kiwis. His locks fluttered in the air propelled by their chant. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

His 6ft 3, 18 stone frame, chest-length straggly hair, and bushy beard may have something to do with it. But his ability to pierce the All Blacks like a sharp knife, to look more menacing than their arm-wobbling army, to hold his line of team mates together in protest like a human coathanger, was entrancing.

They call him the caveman: he’s hulking, at some angles he looks feral. I’ve never heard him speak. But from one look you can tell this Fred Flintsone would see that his Wilma never went without.

This may explain why women have been having strange feelings about Sébastien Chabal, or L’Homme des Cavernes. Particularly French women. Muriel Tournadre has dedicated her blog to explaining why Chabal is sexy: “car il incarne le mythe de l’homme fort,” typing her explanation in bold, in case readers didn’t get her emphasis.

Sebastien Chabal - the he-man who makes Frenchwomen swoon

He may not be a typical French sex symbol but Sebastien Chabal has caveman appeal

Multimedia

• Pictures: Sebastien Chabal's beard

BACKGROUND

• Chabal: France's human wrecking ball

The rugby player, with his inherent superhero size, muscle and bulk, has always had more potential than his sporting counterpart, the lithe but wiry football player, to protect the fairer sex, to fight off handbag-snatching assailants, to carry woman and recently-speared supper simultaneously on one shoulder. Chabal’s silent assault on the rugby pitch equates with the mythical man beast chasing deer on the plain, a man that rouses those hidden (until now) primeval urges that woman evidently possess just as much as men.

Muriel may have fallen for the myth, but what we really must ask is, Sébastien Chabal - is he really sexy? Not according to another French woman, this time a colleague of mine, who almost spat, ‘He iz an animal’ when she saw his picture. Hulking, monosyllabic, opposition-crunching cave men, to those who do not share the glee of fantastic rugby playing, can also appear rather brutish.

Before I watched Chabal play New Zealand last Saturday, I too had my doubts. He reminded me of the mute baddie from Superman II, a hulking sidekick who follows Terence Stamp around and wears a PVC catsuit. The caveman may be strong, he may be able to crush team New Zealand between his thighs, but like Superman’s nemesis, to me he just looks a little dumb - in both senses of the word.

Yet his fans, they are growing. The Beard Community Open Discussion Board (yes they really do exist) can’t get enough of mythical Chabal. “What a welcome change from the metrosexual little-boy types that the media so often presents as a "sexy man." (Dare I mention David Beckham?)” says ‘Furr’, a cigar-smoking, motorcycle-riding, beard-wearing, facial hair champion.

So men – and not just French men - can’t help but fall for the antithesis of metrosexual either. Indeed, the male friend with whom I watched the match last Saturday confessed his own private Chabal dream: to sit him in a barber’s chair, comb through his wet hair, and send him on his way to pummel a cluster of withering Antipodeans. That sounds like love to me.

Enough of the cardigan-wearing sensitivity David. Enough of the floppy-haired fop Hugh. Enough of the drop-kick-scoring-with-the-gammy-leg Johnny. Chabal is pure, unadulterated, homme.

It may take a while for the English to be converted, particularly if they lose on Saturday, but what no one can deny is that this super beast has caught everyone’s eye. Friends who never watch the rugby have heard of – or recognise – Chabal. Gay friends who would rather lust after well-dressed, well-groomed, well-manicured men, have the ‘naked’ calendar of the French rugby team open on the Chabal month.

Are we moving into a new age of the pin-up – man beast over metrosexual? Maybe. Or are we just swept up with the fever of the World Cup, when women prefer to think about throbbing thighs and the brute strength of a modern Sampson rather than whether the French threw a forward pass? Whatever the reason for our fascination/repulsion/adoration, Monsieur Chabal, you have done wonders for the game of rugby.

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