It is always the number of victories what counts when it comes to the fastest men in the professional peloton, so there is no wonder that Matthew Goss of Orica-GreenEDGE has had some rather difficult time as he managed to claim only one stage win within twelve months, in the 2013 edition of the Tirreno-Adriatico.

The 27-year old Australian has some significant results in his palmares, with victories in Milano-Sanremo (2011), GP Ouest France – Plouay (2010) and on two stages of the Giro d’Italia being the brightest highlights, however most of his successes were clocked during his stint for the HTC-High Road (HTC-Columbia) team between 2010 and 2012.

Since his last individual victory on the second stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico last year Goss was mostly disappointing, unable to seriously threaten other sprinters in the finales, nor to translate a solid work of his Orica-GreenEDGE team-mates into very desired wins.

Things looked differently, however, as the Australian sprinter finally has made it to the mix and even shown some signs of strength on the 3rd stage of the Paris-Nice on Tuesday, finishing convincingly just behind John Degenkolb (Giant-Shimano) – undoubtedly the fastest man on the Magny-Cours circuit yesterday.

Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) has struggled for victories since he landed a stage at last year’s Tirreno-Adriatico – his only win in the past twelve months came at the Bay Crits series in January – but he showed significant signs of life in finishing second on stage 3 of Paris-Nice on Tuesday.

After that promising performance, his former team-mate Stuart O’Grady claimed that Goss has everything what it takes to match the fastest sprinters from the professional peloton and in his case everything comes down to a confidence boost, necessary to finally break the duck and get the mojo rolling again.
 

"Gossy is a confidence rider," O'Grady told Cyclingnews last month.

"Every winner is a confidence rider. A rider needs to be confident to win. Once you get a few runs on the board then everything just flows - ask [Tom] Boonen or [Mark] Cavendish."

The former Australian rider also pointed out that regarding his characteristics, especially an ability to get over the climbs better than most of the sprinters to play out the finale, Goss was a victim of a very unfortunate timing with extremely versatile Peter Sagan emerging from nowhere and effectively erasing this kind of advantage.

"Gossy has come up against a guy like [Peter] Sagan that has just come out of nowhere," said O'Grady of the two-time Tour de France green jersey winner.

"Gossy's big strength is being able to get over the climbs in the long races when the sprinters are being dropped. But now you have Sagan who is getting over the climbs in the first 10 to 15 places. Gossy is coming up against a freak."

Not equally versatile as Sagan, neither as strong and athletic as Germans Kittel and Greipel, the 27-year old found it difficult to reinvent his winning ways again, but O’Grady insisted everything should fall into right places from now on and that his current disposition is a sign of a very successful season to come.

"If you haven't got Sagan there, you have Marcel Kittel or Andre Greipel putting out 1,800 watts in the sprint finishes," he continued.

"Hell, even Cav is kind of struggling these days.

"But Gossy just needs a couple of wins to get the mojo going again, and he looks as in good of shape as I've seen him in a long time. Wins will come in 2014."