Who on earth would have thunk? Had you conducted a survey at the start of the season of every avid WSL viewer alive — 50? 1,000? 3 billion? — not one would have picked a Wilko one-two at Snapper and Bells followed by a maiden world tour win for Sebastian Zietz at Margaret River.

Earlier today Zietz elected to remain in the line-up and continue surfing after his semi-final victory over Italo Ferreira, rather than return to the beach to regroup. The unusual strategy, typical of the injury wildcard’s ebullience, paid dividends in the final as he narrowly edged out Julian Wilson, who had beaten a strangely underscored Joel Parkinson in his own semi-final.

Seabass is, as we were reminded 7,549 times by the commentary team, a “happy-go-lucky kinda guy”. Heaps of talent, not averse to a little debauchery, terrible heat strategy, maybe lacking a little focus, unfulfilled potential etc etc; went and got himself a coach, and he’s now performing better than ever. Sound familiar? He now sits in second place on the leaderboard, some 8,000 points behind Wilko. To quote Seabass’s reaction upon learning of his climb up the rankings: “Woooaahh! Radical! No. 2!”

Wilko’s Bells bar tab may have some competition!