Nice tackle: Emma Watson shows rugby players are this season's must-have

Rugby: it’s all odd-shaped balls, loaded terminology and hulks with over-toned thighs. The scoring system is needlessly complicated, the action difficult to watch — you can practically hear the crunch of bones, even if you’re watching on the sofa. The game seemingly celebrates brute force over flair — and its high-profile players seem to have all muscle and not much personality.

Except women have for some time now been finding something of merit in rugger boys. Toting a rock star around town is fun for a while but now ladies including Harry Potter star Emma Watson are swapping spindly legs and Red Stripe during the soundcheck for hunks who’ll go for a pub meal after the game. Rugby players are hot, sweaty and dirty — it seems that a man with cauliflower ears is the new must-have.

Kelly Brook has long been recruiting from the rugby field: she’s dated one-time England golden boy Danny Cipriani, now fly-half with Sale Sharks, and former Scotland winger Thom Evans. Made in Chelsea star Caggie Dunlop is now rumoured to be dating Cipriani — having dated Evans last year. Evans is also an ex-boyfriend of American actress Jessica Lowndes.

Those two aren’t the only players getting action: current England international Ben Foden is married to Saturdays singer Una — the couple have a baby girl, Aoife — and Zara Phillips is expecting her first child with former England captain Mike Tindall. Broadcaster Gabby Logan is married to former Scotland winger Kenny Logan.

Now Emma Watson is dating Matt Janney, the Oxford University rugby player voted his team’s best-looking player on Twitter and lauded as the star of Oxford’s Varsity Match victory over Cambridge in December. To celebrate, Janney — who is studying modern and medieval languages at Oriel College — took a bath with the trophy. Watson was spotted in the crowd at Twickenham cheering him on, and last week the couple were spotted on a Caribbean mini-break.

Emma’s dalliance was the conversion needed to win the title. But dating a player is no gentle game of touch rugby in the park. First up, there are the rules. Football WAGs have to get a handle on the offside rule and the equation “ball + opposition goal = good”.

Rugby WAGs can spend years by the touchline and still chuckle when someone talks about hookers and hand-offs. Then there are the injuries, which can be brutal — Thom Evans’s professional career ended at just 24 after he sustained a serious neck injury playing for Scotland — and the laundry (you can’t share a spin cycle when his stuff is coated with mud, sweat and blood).

Cosy lie-ins are sacrificed for eye-watering winter mornings spent on soggy touchlines. And then there’s the tiresome defence of the rugby player’s intellect — despite the convenience of the stereotype, there is of course no evidence that the players are stupid.

“No time together on Saturdays,” complained one tweeter who responded to a question about the merits/disadvantages of dating a rugby player. “Balls,” said another, though this was likely intended to count as a merit.

In fact, contrary to popular opinion, many rugby players are neither stupid nor brutish. The lovely lads at Oxford certainly have more on their minds than drop goals and line-outs: last year, the university’s rugby team produced a naked calendar to raise money for Against Breast Cancer UK, photographed at 12 famous Oxford locations.

Admittedly other advantages are rather more superficial: chiefly that holy trinity of strength, stamina and tiny shorts.

Ladies: it’s time to join the scrum and head for that tackle.