Francois Pienaar: Everything you need to know about the Springbok legend

David Skippers
Francois Pienaar SA v NZ RWC final 1995 - Alamy.jpg

Although he only represented South Africa in 29 Tests, Francois Pienaar is renowned for his outstanding leadership and is widely regarded as one of international rugby’s greatest-ever captains.

The back-row captained the Springboks when they won the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.

Due to apartheid, the Boks did not participate at the first two World Cups – in New Zealand and Australia in 1987 and England in 1991 – but they made their bow at the global showpiece on home soil in 1995.

Despite being overwhelming underdogs at the start of the tournament, they won all their matches and were eventually crowned champions, with Pienaar‘s captaincy a major reason for their success.

Player background

Pienaar was born in the city of Vereeniging in the northern part of South Africa, and he started playing rugby at a young age. He attended Patriot high school in Witbank and represented South Eastern Transvaal in South Africa’s U18 Craven Week tournament in 1985.

He also won an athletic scholarship to the Rand Afrikaans University (University of Johannesburg), where he studied law.

His rugby career took off while he was at university, and he made a name for himself as a no-nonsense flanker, who was an excellent defender, while his leadership also saw him captaining the side, something which he would continue to do at all levels of the game.

Club career

While playing at Rand Afrikaans University, he was called up to the Transvaal (Lions) squad, and he made his debut for the Johannesburg-based outfit at Currie Cup level in 1989.

After being promoted to captain of the Transvaal team, they soon became a competitive unit, and under his captaincy, they won the Currie Cup in 1993 – their first triumph in the competition since 1972 – and they also won the Super 10 and Lion Cup tournaments that year.

The following year, Pienaar was also Transvaal’s skipper when they defended their Currie Cup title, and he would play in more than 100 matches for the side of which 89 was as captain.

In 1996, Pienaar joined English club Saracens, and he was joined at the north London outfit by fellow internationals Michael Lynagh (Australia) and Phillipe Sella (France). With Pienaar as captain, Saracens won their first trophy in 127 years with victory over Wasps in the 1997/98 Tetleys’ Bitter Cup Final, before his retirement in 2000.

International career

Pienaar represented his country on 29 occasions and had the distinction of captaining his country in all of the Tests which he played in. He made his debut for the Springboks in a 20-20 draw against France in Durban in 1993.

The Boks then suffered an 18-17 defeat to Les Bleus in Johannesburg, which meant they also lost the series but Pienaar continued as skipper. Over the next two years, the team had mixed results, but South Africa’s selectors retained his services as captain ahead of the 1995 World Cup.

They came into the tournament in South Africa ranked as the world’s ninth-best team, but they made a positive start when they beat the defending champions, Australia, in the tournament opener in Cape Town. Following that win, there was no looking back for Pienaar and his team-mates as they notched wins over Romania and Canada in their other pool games before advancing to the knockout rounds where they beat Western Samoa (quarter-finals) and France (semi-finals).

That set up a showdown against their arch-rivals New Zealand in the final, and the Boks would seal a 15-12 triumph after the match went into extra-time.

The image of Pienaar holding the William Webb Ellis trophy aloft will live on long in the memory of Springbok supporters, but it would not be long before his international career came to an end.

That occurred in 1996, when Springbok head coach Andre Markgraaff – who had taken over the Boks’ coaching reins at the start of that year after their World Cup-winning mentor Kitch Christie had stepped down from the position through illness – dropped Pienaar ahead of the 1996 Tri-Nations Test with New Zealand.

Pienaar never played at Test level again, and later that year he joined Saracens.

Personal life

The former Springbok was part of a consortium which took over Saracens in 2022 and is a director at the Premiership outfit. Pienaar is the oldest of four brothers and is married to Nerine Winter. The couple have two sons: Jean and Stephane.

Net worth

Apart from being a director at Saracens, Pienaar is also one of the founders of the Varsity Cup rugby tournament in South Africa and the 56-year-old’s net worth is estimated at $11 million.

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