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Back in 2016, Dylan Pietsch joined Josh Kemeny in the same back-row during their final year of high school.
As fate should have it, they might end up back there together.
The duo were two of the genuine bolters in Eddie Jones’ first Wallabies squad, as Rebels back-rower Kemeny and Waratahs winger Pietsch were named under the umbrella of “utility” players on Sunday.
Confusion, yes. Care factor, zero.
“Initially my reaction was I don’t really know what it is, but I really care because I’m in the squad,” said Pietsch, the former back-rower turned Australian Sevens gun and Waratahs winger.
Kemeny added: “Mate, I was probably even more confused than Dylan to be honest because I still play back-row and we played back-row together a few years ago. So, he’s probably a little bit more versed in that position than I am out on the wing. But to get my foot through the door and get my name on the list was all I really cared about, and I’m just going to work from there.”
Uncapped Wallabies Josh Kemeny (L) and Dylan Pietsch (R) talk about their call-ups to Eddie Jones’ Rugby Championship squad. (Photo credit: Julius Dimataga/RugbyAU Media)
It was apt that the pair faced the media on Monday because both have had remarkable journeys to get to where they are today.
Indeed, years ago Pietsch would wander the streets late at night contemplating his life despite breaking into the Australian Sevens team and seemingly having his world at his feet.
Eventually, Pietsch had the courage to open up about his mental health.
On Sunday, he reflected on his journey with his father, Troy, who has long been one of his biggest supporters.
“It was something I actually spoke to my dad about yesterday,” Pietsch said.
“It’s just so surreal that you can completely go 180 [degrees]. Obviously, I was at the end of the spectrum in 2018 and now at the height of my life. It just shows that one conversation can really change the world and it makes me want to express to people that you really need to talk to people and have people around you that you trust.
“He’s [Pietsch’s father] over the moon. He was more nervous than me. I was playing golf with some of the boys and he just couldn’t stop messaging me. I’ve had probably like 50 texts from him. It was really special.”
Dylan Pietsch was a constant figure for the Waratahs after missing the opening rounds of the 2023 Super Rugby season. (Photo by Brett Hemmings/Getty Images)
Should he run out for the Wallabies, Pietsch will become the 15th Indigenous Wallaby and first since Anthony Fainga’a in 2010.
It’s a shockingly low number given the rich history of Indigenous athletes, but Pietsch says he hopes his journey can help put rugby up in lights to the entire Australian population.
“Being the 15th Indigenous Wallaby would be pretty cool,” he said. “It’s something that I really want to do and hopefully [I] can grow the game to becoming a lot more than just 15 Indigenous Wallabies, so yeah it’d mean the world to me to be able to put that jersey on.”
While Pietsch is known by most rugby followers as a winger, the 25-year-old played all his junior rugby as a back-rower.
Indeed, his breakthrough with Randwick came in the back-row.
More recently, he was forced to shift to the back-row against Fiji when the Waratahs ran out of forward replacements while he also packed down on the scrum when Darren Coleman’s men lost Michael Hooper to the sin bin against the Brumbies in Canberra.
But Pietsch’s big body and impressive work-rate since his rookie season last year, which led to an Australia A call-up, was enough to see Jones include him in the Wallabies’ squad to face the Springboks in Pretoria on July 9.
While he has the reigning John Eales Medallist in front of him, Pietsch said he was eager to learn from Japanese-based Marika Koroibete.
“I have taken a lot from Marika, I feel like we’re kind of similar players,” he said.
“We like to stay on the ground, Marky [Nawaqanitawase] and Suli [Vunivalu] like the air. We like all the effort areas stuff, it’s something I actually spoke to him about last week, which was pretty cool. But I’ll definitely mould [my game] around him. I reckon he’s the best winger in the world at the moment, so to be able to have him here and to learn off him will be pretty cool.”
At the same time, Jones has already told him to be across his detail with the forwards. Not that he necessarily wants to end up with a black eye like Kemeny, who copped a shiner on the Wallabies’ first day in Coogee last week.
“He [Jones] just sat me down this morning actually and said, ‘You’re an option [in the back-row], so just get your head around the lineouts and all the different stuff that involves backrow,’” Pietsch said.
“At the moment, I’m just in the backs. Throughout the week I’ll probably go in and out but try to avoid all the maul stuff as much as possible. I don’t want a shiner like him.”
Josh Kemeny rocketed into Wallabies calculation after missing the entire 2022 season. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)
Kemeny, too, has had to fight through adversity to put himself into the World Cup mix.
After first being called up to Dave Rennie’s April training camp in 2021, the then 22-year-old suffered a devastating knee-injury that saw him miss the best part of 16 months of rugby and the entire 2022 season.
Just getting back on the paddock was his first goal this season, but the steely focused back-rower never thought about giving the game away.
“It was up and down and there was highs and lows, and it was difficult to ride those, but this is what I love doing and I knew that I was going to come good,” he said.
A hard-working back-rower with plenty of speed and physicality, Kemeny gave the Brumbies a wake-up call with a 50-metre sprint that showed up his fancied rivals in Melbourne in May.
It’s more than likely that that was the moment that caught Jones’ attention too, as he burnt Wallabies Nick Frost and Tom Wright to score an incredible try.
But Kemeny thought he might have cruelled his Wallabies aspirations when he was rubbed out for three matches for a late and high shot on Len Ikitau in the same match.
“Oh, definitely,” he admitted. “As the season goes on, you want to put your best foot forward for your Super team, the Rebels, and I was absolutely gutted for them that I couldn’t get out each week.
“But 100 per cent I was gutted. I thought I’d really knocked myself back a few pegs by missing those weeks, but I just made sure that when I got back out there for the last few games, I put my best foot forward and just controlled what I could control.”
On Sunday, over breakfast with his family, having impressed at training with Jones watching the back-rower’s every step, his dream came true as he avoided the dreaded phone call and read the news he had been selected.
“I definitely felt good last week,” he said. “I felt like I put my best foot forward and you can kind of get a feeling whether you’re in the mix or not, but you never really know.
“I was sitting around with some family and my partner and we were all at brekkie that morning, and they were all around me when that news came through. So, obviously lots of hugs and lots of congratulations from them. It was pretty awesome.”
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