After completing high school at Hoërskool Patriot Witbank, he won an athletic scholarship to the Rand Afrikaans University, where he studied law.

In 1994, Transvaal retained the Currie Cup under his captaincy and he was voted international player of the year by Rugby World magazine.

Prior to the World Cup in 1995, the Springboks were only seeded ninth and were not expected to dethrone the incumbent champions Australia, who had not lost a game in the preceding 12 months.

During his acceptance speech, Pienaar made it clear that the team had won the trophy not just for the 60,000 fans at Ellis Park, but also for all 43,000,000 South Africans.

Pienaar had convinced numerous Springbok players to sign with the WRC, but Louis Luyt eventually dissuaded them from breaking with the SARFU.

Pienaar was instrumental in negotiating the deal between SANZAR and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation that turned rugby into a fully-fledged professional game.

[5] In 1996, Pienaar was controversially dropped from the Springbok side, after 29 caps, by coach Andre Markgraaff, who accused him of feigning an injury during a match.

[7] The 2009 film Invictus,[8] based on the book, was directed by Clint Eastwood, and starred Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Pienaar.