Who Says Thighs Doesn't Matter? (with apologies for the bad grammar)

Well The River Cottage Diaries has become a bit serious of late so it's time to inject a bit of humour and gratuitous photos of well-muscled rugby players into it again in honour of the QBE Autumn Internationals.

Those of you who have been with me for a few years will know that I LOVE rugby. I purposely steered The Boy away from football by sending him to a school that didn't play it. Then of course we moved to South West France where rugby is practically a religion, and one that I'm more than happy to worship at the alter of. He now plays for the town's Colts team - currently top of the Dorset and Wilts Merit Table, which is a good thing, and has the very first signs of a cauliflower ear,which isn't.

I wrote about rugby here (amazingly this post has been viewed by over 10800 people - I bet they were all women too!), here (only a mere 2000 views, that one) and here, (6000 views for that one) and in many more places over the years.

A friend suggested today that women and thighs is the same as men and boobs. Yes, I'm happy to go along with that. We women can be just as shallow. The good thing though is that rugby players thighs are not surgically enhanced. They are all one hundred percent natural.

Back in the days of Chris Moyles' Breakfast Show on Radio 1 he did a 'Rugby Thigh Challenge' and his producer got to measure James Haskell's thighs. Now that's what I call a dream job!

26.5 inches in case you were wondering

The term 'Rugby Thighs' has even made it into the Urban Dictionary with suggestions that the thighs of a rugby player are pretty damn near perfection. I'd agree with that as would most of the bodybuilding forums where the question is often asked 'how can you get thighs like a rugby player?'. I'd have thought the answer tothat is simple. Play rugby.

Bizarrely, if you Google 'rugby players thighs' one of the paid adverts that comes up is 'Pretty Ukrainian Ladies'. Whether or not that means they have rugby player's thighs or not, well, someone else can check that out.

And the rugby year wouldn't be complete without the annual Dieux du Stade calendar, which I have discussed in the past (all in the name of research of course). While I'm not sure about the inclusion of a couple of French football players, I mean, it's not rugby is it, I hope you will enjoy 'le teaser' which you can see here

My current favourite pair of thighs belong to young George North, who plays for Wales. When he was first called up, Warren Gatland, the Wales coach said of him, 'He is a big, physical player. Last time I saw a pair of thighs like that was on some of the Samoans back in New Zealand.' So apparently it's not just a girl thing!

George brings a new meaning to 'thighs like tree trunks'

And to finish up, and show how really shallow I am, here's a gratuitous photo of the Le Caveman, Sebastien Chabal, who has some of the best thighs in the game. Boy do I miss watching him play...