Mark Cavendish and his Omega Pharma-Quick Step team took to Friday's third stage of Tirreno-Adriatico with Cavendish's public criticism of his teammates still attracting the attention of the media.

Cavendish publicly vented his frustration with his lead-out after being left too far back with just a kilometre to go in the sprint of yesterday’s stage. In the end he came fifth but said that he would be having 'words' with his teammates.

Omega Pharma-Quick Step sports director Brian Holm verified that the riders discussed the sprint and solved the matter. He described the talk as productive.

"We know what Cav's like. Nobody had a perfect lead-out yesterday but nobody said much except Cav. But I actually like it that he speaks out. There's no bollocks with Cav," Holm told Cyclingnews.com

"What Cav said wasn't negative, he wanted to be constructive, to help everyone learn and improve. We had a meeting but it was a good meeting. If we'd pretended that everything went well and it wasn't a big deal, there's a risk we'd start believing it ourselves.

Holm also pointed out that the team had had a heavy workload during yesterday’s stage in an attempt to protect and maintain Cavendish’s overall lead. "It's also important to keep in mind that we worked for the whole stage to defend the jersey and so we had two riders less for the finale."