Francois Pienaar

Francois Pienaar

Player information
Full name	Jacobus Francois Pienaar
birthday	2nd January 1967
place of birth	Vereeniging , South Africa
society
society	resigned
position	Winger
Clubs as active
Years	society	Games (points)
1989-1996 1997-2000	Transvaal / Lions Saracens	100 () 44 (55)
National team
Years	National team	Games (points)
1993-1996	South Africa	29 (15)
Coaching stations
Years	Association / Province / Franchise
1997-2002	Saracens

Jacobus Francois Pienaar (born January 2, 1967 in Vereeniging ) is a former South African rugby union player who played on the position of winger . For the South African national team , the "Springboks", he was used in 29 international matches from 1993 to 1996 (in each game as captain) and won the 1995 world championship with her . At provincial and club level, he played for the Transvaal from 1989 to 1996 , then for the Saracens in England until 2000 . He was also the coach of the Saracens for five years.

Career

Pienaar is the eldest of four sons in an Afrikaaner working family, descended from Huguenot immigrants named Pinard from France . After finishing school in Witbank , he received a sports scholarship to Rand Afrikaans University (now part of Johannesburg University ), where he studied law and played rugby for the university team. From 1989 he was in the South African championship, the Currie Cup , for the selection team of the Transvaal Province (today's Golden Lions ) in action. In 1993, Transvaal won the Super 10 (predecessor of the Super 14 ) and the Currie Cup with Pienaar as captain, and in 1994 the Currie Cup a second time.

Pienaar played his first international match for the Springboks against France on June 26, 1993 , just under a year after the boycott of South African apartheid policies was lifted . In each of his 29 games, he led the team as captain. Although the Springboks only had one colored player in their ranks at the time, President Nelson Mandela publicly supported the team. He hoped that a successful performance at the upcoming World Cup in South Africa would help the country in upheaval and overcome differences.

During the 1995 World Cup , the South Africans, who were only in sixth place in the world rankings, defeated defending champions Australia , Romania , Canada , Samoa and France one after the other . In the final in front of 60,000 spectators at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg , they met New Zealand . Despite a strained lower leg, Pienaar played through and the Springboks won 15:12 after extra time. After the game he received the trophy, the Webb Ellis Cup, from Mandela, who wore a Springbok jersey .

A week after the World Cup, Pienaar led a players strike at Transvaal and achieved better conditions. At the end of 1996, he was no longer nominated for the national team after coach Andre Markgraaff accused him of faking an injury during a game. In 1997 he went to England , where he was signed by the Saracens in Watford as a player-coach . In 1998, the previously relatively unsuccessful Saracens won the Pilkington Cup and came second in the championship .

In 2000 Pienaar resigned as a player and became manager of the Saracens. Since the team was unable to build on their previous successes in the following two years, he resigned his positions as coach and manager in 2002 and returned to Cape Town , where he has lived with his family ever since. Occasionally he comments on rugby games on British television. From 2002 to 2005 Pienaar led the South African bid committee for the 2011 World Cup; However, New Zealand was awarded the contract. In 2005 he was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame .

Book and film

In 1999 Pienaar co-authored the book Rainbow Warrior , in which he looks back on his career and especially on the 1995 World Cup, but also criticizes the sports officials. In the 2009 film Invictus - Unconquered by director Clint Eastwood , which is based on a novel by John Carlin and the events before and during the 1995 World Cup, Pienaar is played by Matt Damon .

literature

• Francois Pienaar, Edward Griffiths: Rainbow Warrior . CollinsWillow, London 1999, ISBN 0-00-218905-4 .
• John Carlin: Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation . Penguin Press, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-59420-174-5 .

Web links

• National team profile
• Interview with Francois Pienaar , BBC, 2005
• Entry into the International Rugby Hall of Fame
• International match statistics from Francois Pienaar