Rugby: Social media race on between Richie McCaw and Dan Carter

All Blacks captain Richie McCaw and Daniel Carter with the Webb Ellis Cup. Photo/Getty.

The social media race is on between All Blacks' World Cup winners Richie McCaw and Dan Carter to see who can attract the most Facebook likes.

McCaw has only been on Facebook for a few weeks, after Carter finally convinced him to join the social media revolution in the wake of their World Cup final victory celebrations earlier this month.

The recently retired All Blacks skipper was an instant hit, and has attracted almost 500,000 likes, but he has some work to do to catch up to Carter, who has 935,786 page likes.

However, both fall some way behind Kiwi entertainment personalities Lorde and Peter Jackson, who have 6,598,687 and 2,185,599 likes respectively.

After initially being reluctant to put himself out into the public sphere via social media, McCaw is quickly getting the hang of it and each of his 16 posts so far have attracted thousands of likes.

Fans enjoyed being kept up to date with McCaw's journey home from the UK to New Zealand with the Webb Ellis Cup and the All Blacks quick-stop celebratory tour around the country.

Since then the 34-yearold has given his followers glimpses of his private life by sharing pictures of him standing beside helicopters, and attending Saturday's Fleetwood Mac concert in Auckland, while he also took time to reflect on the Paris terror attacks and the passing of former teammate Jonah Lomu.

Both McCaw and Carter's latest posts reveal the pair are supporting Movember charity, but the accompanying pictures show Carter looking clean-shaven, while McCaw has the beginnings of a moustache and beard.

Regardless who wins the battle of the stubble, it seems the Facebook profiles of both will only continue to grow in popularity.