Peter De Villiers made history when he became South Africa's first black coach after being chosen to succeed World Cup winner Jake White in January 2008. Controversy surrounded the appointment as it was admitted by SARU chief Oregan Hoskins that De Villiers' race was a deciding factor in him beating Heyneke Meyer to the post.

De Villiers played scrum half for the Griquas and Boland teams during apartheid before beginning his coaching career with amateur club Tygerberg in 1996. His first club appointment was as assistant coach for Western Province in the Currie Cup in 1998, a post he held whilst managing the Under-19s Springboks side. He took the U-19s to third in the World Championship in 1998.

De Villiers coached Currie Cup team Valke during 2002 and 2003, before taking charge of the Springbok U21s. He supervised three U-21 world championships, leading the Boks to third in 2004, first in 2005 and second in 2006. In 2007 De Villiers was handed the coaching role of the Emerging Springboks. He took them to victory in that season's Nations Cup, beating Argentina A 24-10 in the final.

By taking the sensible step of maintaining the Rugby World Cup winning squad to the best of his abilities, De Villiers has managed to secure a strong base of players to continue the Springboks' recent success.

After a mixed season in 2008 which saw the Springboks' first win in New Zealand for 10 years as well as a damaging 19-0 reversal to the same opposition on home soil, De Villiers took charge for the visit of the 2009 British & Irish Lions.

His relationship with the media took a battering during the tour as outspoken comments about scrum-half Ricky Januarie and flanker Schalk Burger's ban for gouging drew censure from SARU and fierce criticism from the Lions. Centre Brian O'Driscoll labelled De Villiers 'a disgrace' following the incident, but the coach had the best of the on-field confrontations as his side pulled through 2-1 in the Test series.

Later the same year, De Villiers went on to steer the Springboks to only their third Tri-Nations title and first since 2004. Three victories over the All Blacks and two more against the Wallabies propelled them to the southern hemisphere crown with their only reverse coming at the hands of Australia in Brisbane.