Home favourite Brett Rumford continued to lead the way as Australians dominated the leaderboard on day two of the ISPS HANDA World Super 6 Perth at Lake Karrinyup Country Club.
The Perth native followed up his opening 66 with a 65 to get to 13 under and open up a two-shot lead over countryman David Bransdon, with fellow Australian Steven Jeffress a further shot back.
Rumford has finished in the top 20 in his last three appearances here but they were 72-hole stroke play events, with the Super 6 providing a new kind of challenge on Sunday.
The top 24 players after Saturday's third round will progress to the six-hole match play knockout phase, with the top eight of those receiving a bye into the last-16.
Rumford is in a comfortable position to make it into the final day but he will not be taking his foot off the pedal and is aiming to earn himself a spot as one of the top eight seeds.
"Oh, 100 per cent, definitely," he said. "That's one less lottery round you have to deal with, isn't it? So that's definitely a huge bonus qualifying inside that top eight. It's definitely something I am thinking about.
"For any players, that's why it's going to be so unique and so interesting as well. There's sort of cuts within cuts this week and if you're not thinking about it, maybe it's a good thing, maybe a bad thing, I'm not too sure, but definitely the top eight is where you want to be.
"I think I'm just going to take it one day at a time. Wake up tomorrow, just check energy levels and really just maintaining that, staying fresh, particularly in this heat.
That's definitely a huge bonus qualifying inside that top eight. It's definitely something I am thinking about - Brett Rumford
"So that's all you can really hope for, just walking up to the first tee feeling as though you're good to go."
The 39 year old birdied the first, produced the shot of the day from the trees in making par on the fourth and then made five birdies in a row from the sixth.
He holed from 15 feet on the sixth, got up and down from sand on the seventh, put his tee-shot to four feet on the next and two smart approaches got him to 12 under. A 30-footer from the fringe on the 13th was followed by a bogey but he bounced back with another gain on the next to re-establish his cushion.
Bransdon started from the tenth and birdied his opener and the 11th for the second consecutive day before adding further gains on the 13th, 15th and 18th from 15 feet. Another gain on the first after an approach to three feet started a run of four birdies courtesy of some dialled-in iron play.
Jeffress had a single bogey in signing for a 66 to sit a shot ahead of Australian Lucas Herbert and American Johannes Veerman, who both had rounds of 68.
Matthew Millar fired a 65 to sit at eight under alongside fellow Australians Adam Blyth and Daniel Fox, and German Sebastian Heisele.
Lake Karrinyup winners Thorbjørn Olesen and Louis Oosthuizen were then at seven under alongside Ryan Evans, Ryan Fox, Casey O'Toole, Duncan Stewart and Josh Younger, with Robert Allenby, Austin Connelly, Nick Cullen, Thomas Detry, Michael Long, Jeev Milkha Singh, Jason Scrivener, Jordan Smith and Hideto Tanihara rounding out the top 25 a further shot back.
