Jay Davies won the Margaret River Pro trials today

Story by Elliot Struck

“I’m so pumped, I don’t know how I did it.” An absolutely exhausted Jay Davies was kind enough to answer his phone to Stab this evening (shortly before diving for his pillow), to briefly discuss what the hell happened today at Margaret River. In short, Jay won the trials, and put himself into the main event with a wildcard in his back pocket. If that ain’t a win for good surfing, I don’t know what is.

“It was just horrendous, three different days in one,” enlightens Jay. “Westerly this morning and horrible and hardly any swell. Then it went howling south-west for the middle part of the day with rain squalls, and was hardly breaking. I mean, there was still waves to surf, but it was just challenging, and with heaps of weird chops in the face. The arvo went more south and cleaned up a bit though. You could tell which waves would have scoring potential. The odd ramp and a few bits and pieces.”

Jay hadn’t been in a contest jersey since the trials for this event last year, and on that occasion he didn’t make it past the opening rounds. Things were different today though; He surfed four heats, losing in the first, no-losers round and then winning each of the following scraps. And, all to the applause of proud buddies.

“I’ve had so much love from my mates, everyone’s so pumped having someone to go for from the home town. I’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to gain. I just want to give as good a crack as I can.”

Everything to gain is right. And that includes points – yeah, World Tour event wildcards get to keep their numbers this year, for the first time ever. But that doesn’t really matter to Jay.

“Nah, I’m not at all (thinking about qualifying). It’s fun competing, but for some reason it doesn’t appeal to me to slog it out. If I had enough points for the Primes I’d give it a go, but it just seems unrealistic for me to build that seed. It feels like it’d be gruelling and heartbreaking. I’m just not that dedicated to competition. All my mates say I should but I don’t know if I’m that psyched on it. I don’t suit waves like Huntington Beach and little beachies, and people don’t wanna see my ogre body slogging out a turn on a one foot wave.”

I disagree. But, for now we’ll just enjoy Mr Davies lighting it up on the webcast. “I can’t wait to see what happens the next couple of days,” he tells me. “I hope the Box is on. I hope the wind just swings a bit east and we can run it out there. When it comes down to it, it’s going to be solid. It’s always hard to say how big Margies will be. A day like tomorrow, you could well be looking at the Box. If it’s Box, I’ll just rude my normal 6’1” shorty. But if it’s main break Margies… that’ll vary from 6’1” to 6’6” – anything could happen.”

And anything will happen. Watch Mr Davies drop a live web edit tomorrow feat. Mick Fanning and Matt Wilkinson (aka heat six). Watch it all go down here.