KATHIE SHEARER: Paul Casey said that you had a fabulous round today, very solid. Can you do that tomorrow?

MATT JONES: I started off a little shaky and I knew once you get through a certain hole, you’ve got more holes later on in the round that you can make some birdies and I was lucky enough to get through them and got to the back nine and I made, I think, five birdies on the back nine to have a good round.

KATHIE SHEARER: The guys are also saying that the pin placements were quite difficult out there today.  Did you think they were?

MATT JONES:  Yes, they were.  They were tough to get close to the hole with the wind we had too, but there are a couple of holes out there, with a little bit of local knowledge, like on 13, you know you can miss it right and bounce it down off the hill; 11 – I didn’t birdie it, but to hit it long back off that hill can be helpful.  It was playing difficult; the wind was tough.

KATHIE SHEARER:  You see when you had a bogey, you had a birdie right away,  you never let it get away from you.  You were very much in control of your game.

MATT JONES:  Yeah, I did, and that’s a good thing to be able to do.  I was very calm out there today.  My caddy said on the first tee if you’re not nervous – I can’t remember what he said – then I must be wrong, because I wasn’t very nervous, I was very comfortable and excited to go out and play. I played with Paul for many years in college and it was fun to go out there and play with him.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Are you thinking of a winning score tomorrow?

MATT JONES:  I honestly have no idea.  I know I’m leading, but I don’t know by how many.  But no, it depends on what the conditions are like; just try not to make a double and a triple on the front nine like I did last time and make it a little easier.

Q.  Matt, you covered it a little bit in what you’ve said already, but there was a lot of jockeying for positions early on.  The golf course was clearly playing a lot more difficult today with that wind.  Are you able to quantify how more difficult it was compared to the opening two days?

MATT JONES:  It’s just not a normal wind, I don’t find out here from years of playing, the easterly’s not a normal wind.  I find it normally a north or a south wind.  So, you’ve got some side winds out there.  It was just tricky because it kept going from east, then it went to northeast, then it went to southeast and it’s just tough to trust some of those numbers.  It got Paul on number 9 where he hit a perfect shot and it came up in a bunker.  It was tougher and the pin locations were tougher.  It was tougher to get access out there.

Q.  You looked like you were struggling with your back a bit, stretching a lot and moving around.  Is it troublesome, is it affecting you at all?

MATT JONES:  No, it’s fine.  It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with plenty of times in my life.  I’ll be fine.

Q.  It’s an ongoing sort of a soreness sort of thing?

MATT JONES:  Yeah, it’s something I’m sure every golfer would deal with.  We all have a bad back, but nothing that I can’t play with and play through.

Q.  You just touched on your start on the final day in 2015.  You still came through and won that day, what can you take from that and do tomorrow if you’re having moments where it’s not going well, what can you take from it?

MATT JONES:  Just to stay patient, give yourself opportunities.  It’s the old saying, one shot at a time, which is kind of true.  Just to play smart and give yourself birdie opportunities.  I know the golf course.  I know the breaks pretty well on the greens, which I feel very comfortable on putting and if something does happen like that, like it did in ’15, I’ll be comfortable enough and I won’t have to worry about it.

Q.  Can you give us an insight, the discussion with the rules official there at the end of the round, near the end of the round when you were in the trees there, what was that discussion about?

MATT JONES:  If I was in a tyre track or not and then where my nearest drop would be.  The lie wasn’t too bad in the tyre track and I didn’t want to drop it, because it could have plugged in the dirt, so it was an easy decision.  But I hit it to the right.  I hit someone, which I didn’t know and I feel bad about that, I hope they didn’t get hurt.  But yeah, it was just a very simple question.

Q.  Then when you saw the ball rolling down the slope into a much better position than it was, what was your reaction there?

MATT JONES:  Yeah, that’s where I was trying to leave it on my second shot and then I was happy where it ended up.  I chose the wrong shot on my third shot, which was disappointing but I was happy for it to end up there, because I know the shot I had to play and I just played the wrong one.

Q.  Having won an Australian Open already, does that make it a bit easier tomorrow?

MATT JONES:  I’m sure I can draw on it.  I haven’t won a lot of golf in my life.  I’ve won Houston Open, won a couple of other smaller Tournaments and then the Australian Open, but it’s only four years past and I’ll draw on some of that experience tomorrow, of course.

Q.  There’s been a lot of work done on the fairways over the last couple of months, how did you find the lies today?

MATT JONES:  They’re good, they’re very tight.  The fairways are very firm and that’s why that shot on 17, I chose the wrong shot.  I know you can’t go high with anything here, especially short.  I should have gone low and I went with a 60 and the bounce on these tight fairways, I had too much bounce on my club to get under it.  But they’re totally fine.  They’re as good as I’ve seen them for a long time.

Q.  We were having a blue on the radio coverage about how long your putt was for birdie on 18, what do you reckon it was?

MATT JONES:  Three feet.

Q.  I lose.

Q.  It looked like it lipped in, it actually reminded us of the putt that you won the Open with.

MATT JONES:  It was definitely on the low side, yeah, definitely caught the low edge.

KATHIE SHEARER:  Thank you, thank you for coming, hope we see you there tomorrow.