Dylan Pietsch flew out for South Africa on Friday to correct a few wrongs of the past.

One is the enduring challenge of winning at altitude.

No Australian rugby tourists to the high veldt of Pretoria have beaten the Springboks at the daunting Loftus Versfeld.

That is a streak that stretches all the way back to 1963 during seven frustrating visits.

But Pietsch's meteoritic rise up the ranks from Olympics sevens workhorse one year, to a switch from the forward pack to outside backs in his NSW Waratahs debut season the next, to Wallabies selection this year suggests that nothing's out of the question.

"Hopefully I start my first Test career there, to be honest," Pietsch said.

"It would be an awesome moment to do it there because we've never won at Pretoria.

"So, to be able to have that lure in your potential debut is great.

"We've already talked about our lungs with the altitude, and how that will work too.

"I really enjoy those challenges of pushing yourself and your body to the limits.

"I have a different process to some, so it's not really daunting at all but more exciting, if I was able to play that first Test.

"All these things that come that people call pressure is more like an opportunity."

That's in the moment, the now, after spending a week preparing to tackle one of the world's best sides in a venue located 1350m above sea level where the air's thin and breathing is more difficult.

But there's something more personal for the Wiradjuri man in the bigger picture of playing for your country.

It's the irrefutable detail buried in the telling story of Indigenous representation.

Pietsch is set to be the 15th player of Indigenous descent to appear for the Wallabies across 124 years of Australian Rugby Union.

The first didn't happen until Gamilaroi man Cecil Ramalli played two Tests in 1938.

The next was the revered Wakka Wakka and Mununjali man Lloyd McDermott, some 24 years later, who stepped aside after two Tests in protest ahead of playing apartheid South Africa before Australia's first Aboriginal barrister advanced the involvement of his people in the running game.

But considering it took 81 years for the greatest of all time – Mark Ella – to be the third Wallaby after 613 non-Indigenous players debuted, shortly before brothers Glen and Gary Ella, a resolute Pietsch now wants to make a stand against such poor numbers.

"This is something that has been a goal since last year," Pietsch said.

"I really want to be the 15th Indigenous Wallaby, but not because I want to be number 15 because I want to drag another 20 with me or I want to create 30 more by playing.

"I just want to be able, I suppose, assist in a change because only having the 14 (past) Indigenous players in the Wallabies' entire history is just not good enough.

"For me personally to be the 15th is cool, but I want to see at least double the number of what I am about to be now.

"It is something I've had written down on my bedside table for nearly two years."

While there's been 11 more Indigenous Wallabies from 1988 until 2017, that growth has flatlined markedly with no other talent featured for 11 years since Matt Hodgson.

But Pietsch has an ally in his corner for a long career to inspire greater inclusiveness.

The faith from coach Eddie Jones is already so strong, so soon that the 24-year-old has to be the only international to prepare for running on the wing while learning lineout calls for the lifetime backrower.

"I've learned so much from Eddie already before even playing a game," he said.

Jones has mentored the newcomer closely in Wallabies camp on the back of sharing similar experiences once as outcasts in their environment.

The son of a Japanese mother in post-war Tasmania faced rampant racism before the family relocated to Sydney and adopted rugby at the same club as the Ella brothers.

The Randwick heroes had attended and played rugby league for the La Perouse Public School together, but like Pietsch they did not fit in with the cultural elite of the rugby.

Pietsch found a scholarship to the prestigious Kings School led to the suppression of his Aboriginal identity, but that thumbing of their noses never crushed his ambition.

"Being a Wallaby for me has by far been my No.1 (ambition) since I was four running around with the Leeton Phantoms," he said.

"I got to go to the Olympics, but nothing quite compares to wearing a Wallabies jersey.

"All I want to do is get that and if I'm a part of the World Cup that ticks another box."