Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) was a very happy man after today's Giro d'Italia stage, as his 8th place in the sprint saw him take over the maglia rosa from his teammate Svein Tuft.

After the race, Matthews confirmed that this had been premeditated by the team: “The plan was to win the TTT and give Svein the jersey on his birthday yesterday, as a thank-you for all the hard work he's done for the team. And then, the idea was that I would get a good placing in the sprint and take over the jersey.”

Even though he's now the overall leader, Matthews was a far cry from stage winner Marcel Kittel, and the Australian acknowledged that it might take geography to beat the Giant-Shimano sprinter: “We need hills,” joked Matthews. “He's definitely the fastest right now, no matter what the conditions are. I'll try to get as close as possible to him on the first stages, but I'll also try to save energy for stages five and six.”

The fifth and sixth stage end with climbs that may not be hard enough to entice a battle between the GC favourites, but should thin out the field of sprinters considerably, giving riders like Matthews a shot at stage glory.

All in all, almost everything in this Giro went to plan for Orica-GreenEdge so far. And Matthews is confident he can keep the race lead for a while yet: “When I knew I was going to the Giro, it became the plan to go for the pink jersey. I'm happy to have it now. And with the time gap we have to the other teams, I hope we can defend the jersey for about a week.”

Orica-GreenEdge will have to defend the jersey again on tomorrow's stage from Armagh to Dublin. With the second half of the stage running along the coast, there is a definite possibility of winds wreaking havoc in the peloton.