Orica-GreenEdge did a huge amount of work to bring back the early break in today's 13th stage of the Giro d'Italia which at 254km was the longest of the entire race. Brett Lancaster paid back the team's efforts by sprinting to fourth while the team's preferred sprinter Matthew Goss is still struggling with illness.

Stage wins is the only objective for Orica-GreenEdge in the Giro d'Italia and the man most likely to deliver success is Matthew Goss. Having missed out on a perfect opportunity in Matera due to a crash, today's long 13th stage seemed to be the perfect opportunity for the team as the lumpy finale could maybe put some of the pure sprinters into trouble.

Unfortunately, the team had to reassess the situation yesterday when Goss fell ill and instead Brett Lancaster contested the sprint in yesterday's rain-soaked stage. He finished 5th but the team had hoped for more and today was an opportunity to take revenge.

Luckily, Goss was better today but he was still not healthy enough to stay in the peloton when the going got tough on the day's only categorized climb. Instead, it was once again left to Lancaster to take care of the sprinting duties and this time he improved to finish 4th.

"He (Goss) is better than he was yesterday, so that’s encouraging," sports director Julian Dean said. "He’s recovering as best as he can while racing, and we’re hoping a course of antibiotics and time will see him improve. He’s definitely disappointed with how he’s going, but there’s not much he can do about it at the moment. We’re staying positive and keeping on top of things as best we can.

"With Gossy’s illness, we had an open approach to the start of the day. We didn’t want to rule out the possibility that we could contest the sprint with Goss, but we weren’t sure how he would feel – especially because the last 30 kilometres of this stage looked to be (and were) pretty difficult."

With Goss uncertain the team chose an aggressive approach to the stage but it turned out that tactics from the other sprint teams prevented the team from joining the day's early move.

"We gave everyone the option to go into the breakaway if they wanted, and several our riders did what they could to get up the road," Dean explained. "It quickly became clear that Quick-Step and Cannondale were not going to let a break that contained one of us get away. They closed down every move that included one of our riders. They wanted us to help with the chase later in the race, and if we had someone in the break, we wouldn’t contribute. Eventually the peloton let a break go that didn’t have us in it."

Without a rider in the front group, the team decided to give the sprint a try and for a long time the Australian team was seen at the front of the peloton doing most of the early chase work.

"We had Jens Mouris, Christian Meier and Luke Durbridge contribute to the chase work today," Dean said. "These are riders that are here specifically for that type of effort. As I already mentioned, we weren’t sure what to expect from Gossy, and if he was feeling good, we definitely wanted to give him a shot. It didn’t work out for him today, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t going to try to ride as if we can win it."

"The break was brought back in the closing kilometres, and there were a lot of attacks as the peloton powered closer to the line. It was hectic in preparation for the sprint. Although Gossy wasn’t on top of his game today, we were able to put Brett up for the finish."

In the last kilometre, Pieter (Weening, ed.) and Jens (Keukeleire, ed.) did a good job bringing Brett into position. Brett said he got boxed in, but he pulled his way out with 600 metres to go and came around the long way to take fourth. It’s another good ride for Brett, and it’s a bit of a consolation for guys like Jens Mouris, Christian and Durbo who did awesome work on the front."

Without a GC rider in its ranks the team will now take a backseat in the weekend where the Giro heads into the Alps. Instead, the team hopes to conserve energy, hoping to strike in the final week of racing.

" The next two stages head to the big mountains," Dean said. "We have a lot of guys who can sit back and try to recover this weekend – well, recover is the wrong word. They can take a bit of a mental break and save energy to focus on getting ready for the middle of next week when we’ll have more opportunities. We hope Gossy will come around, and there are few days were Pieter can take his chances as well. There’s still good stuff ahead for us, and we’ll do everything we can to be ready."

Starting at 14.15, you can follow the first stage in the Alps on CyclingQuotes.com/live.