Border women this week backed up a recent survey by online dating agency RSVP that found tradesmen made for better eye candy than firefighters.

Twenty-nine per cent of the women RSVP quizzed said they were likely to check out a tradesman on a building site, compared to 19 per cent who would eye up a fetching fireman at a station.

And 32 per cent of the 650 single women polled believed the sexiest men worked in trades, with emergency services coming in second with 25 per cent.

Wodonga carpentry apprentice James McCabe, 20, said the job kept tradies in good shape.

“You stay fit and you’re in the sun, so you’re getting a tan,” he said.

“And I think we’ve got more guts than people who sit behind desks.

“We’re out there actually working and doing the hard yards.”

But Wodonga’s firefighters said they weren’t threatened, believing it to be only a temporary fall from grace.

“People come back to the tried and the tested, and that’s the firefighter,” station officer David Brown said.

Andrew Schulz said firefighters were often held in high regard in the community.

“Every time we go out in the truck people are waving at us,” he said.

“People don’t say ‘can I have a photo in front of your Holden one-tonne ute?’.”

Wodonga man Rowan Montoneri straddles both occupations as a refrigeration mechanic and CFA volunteer.

So does that make him the Border’s most attractive man?

Sorry ladies — he married in October.