Michael Matthews again put his great versatility on show when he mixed it up with the GC riders in the tough third stage of the Vuelta a Espana. With the red jersey now on his shoulders, the Australian sets his sights on more stage wins and expects no less than 10 stages to suit his capabilities.

Michael Matthews has capped off an inspirational team performance to win stage three of the Vuelta a España and move into the red race leader’s jersey today.

Matthews’ ORICA-GreenEDGE team punished themselves on the front of the peloton for the entire stage to bring back an early breakaway and position the 23-year-old in the punchy, uphill final.

“I’m just so happy that I got to finish off for them,” Matthews said of his teammates.

“It makes the win so much sweeter to be able to win when your whole team has absolutely smashed themselves for you.

“We thought it was going to be a bit more of a reduced bunch at the finish. The heat was the main factor today and then the climb in the final was very hard but I had the team to put me in the perfect position and from there it was up to me to deliver for them.”

Sport director Neil Stephens echoed Matthews’ sentiments.

“This is one of the best collective wins this team has ever had and I have ever seen,” Stephens said after the race.

“A lot of the other teams said afterwards that we really did deserve the win today and I think that’s the biggest credit you can get as a team.” 

“Once we started working for the stage, we had to bite off a fair bit.

“A lot of the other teams were disinterested or knew that we were one of the favourites for the stage and they passed the work onto us.

“About half way through we had spent so much energy to get that far we really just had to spend a little bit more and that was basically everyone we had.

“The three big guys, Mitch (Docker), Brett (Lancaster) and Sam (Bewley), I didn’t think they would get through to the finish at all but not only did they get there, they were riding on the front in an unbelievable manner the whole day. 

“Big hats off to those guys and the others guys who put in their bit going up and down for water all day and working a bit later in the stage so Michael could take the victory.”

The victory was Matthews’ third Vuelta a España stage win, following victories on stage five and 21 in 2013, and second leader’s jersey for the season after he wore the Giro d’Italia maglia rosa for six days in May. 

“It is definitely a dream come true,” Matthews said of 2014.

“I didn’t expect to have any Grand Tour leader’s jerseys this year and now I have two from both of the three-week races I’ve done. I still can’t believe it, I am definitely going to have to pinch myself tonight.

"I couldn’t ask for much more. We started as the favorite team today. It was up to us to ride all day. Unfortunately I had to use all my guys from the very beginning to bring the breakaway back. As you can see, the guys have totally spent themselves to bring me where I am now. It would have definitely been impossible to win without them.

"In the final, Caruso attacked, I didn’t think we’d catch him but Chris Froome went over the top to chase him down with Dan Martin on the wheel. It was up to me to jump on Dan Martin and hopefully come over him in the finale. I just got him in the finale. For me and for the team, it was a 110% effort, like we planned. 

"I didn’t know from the start of the season that I was going to do the Giro or the Vuelta. My plan was just to do the Tour. The back-up plan has probably been better than I could expect. Everything happens for a reason. You get thrown into things [crashing before the Grand Départ of the Tour and being forced to withdraw after attending the teams presentation in Leeds].

"You get smashed down sometimes but you just have to work hard in order to come back above the level you were at before. This year I’ve shown that it’s not the end of the world if you crash. You can come back and be even stronger than you were before.

"You have to believe in your training and in yourself. With the team I have around me, not just the riders but the staff, all these guys are really motivated to get you back going after you’ve been pushed down like I was before the Tour de France.

"To be here in the red jersey and win a stage in this Vuelta, it’s a dream come true. I love Spain, I love this race. It’s such a nice race, riding through the whole of Spain. I can’t ask for much more out of this race for myself but… keeping the red jersey, I haven’t looked that far ahead yet.

"There are around ten stages that suit my capabilities, so hopefully there are a few more stages for me to win after this one. I hope I haven’t used all my energy on the stage today. At the moment I’m just so happy with what we delivered today. From now on, everything is a bonus.

"It wasn’t the plan to have the red jersey. We were going for a stage win but now we also have the red jersey out of the stage win. We got me in the team but we also have our GC riders like Chaves and our little climber Adam Yates, so hopefully there are some more stage wins to get.

"I want to beat the other sprinters again. I’ve shown that I’m in good form. Yesterday in the finale, it was just a bit of bad luck. It was not our fault that I wasn’t in the top three yesterday. It was a chaotic finale. In the next couple of stages, we’ll be fighting for more stage wins and try to hold the red jersey for as long as possible."

“Something like this [the uphill finale] is perfect for Matthews but we definitely didn’t plan to ride so much today," Simon Clarke said. "The guys were awesome! With such winding roads, it was not much harder to ride at the front though. We got through.

"We weren’t expecting Movistar to give the jersey away but very early in the stage it’s been obvious that they wouldn’t help us. They wanted to take away the responsibilities. Then we were not going to ride half for the stage and half for GC, we just committed to everything.

"The boys were unbelievable: Mitch (Docker), Sam (Bewley) and Brett (Lancaster) rode early on, later on it was Cam (Meyer) and Adam (Yates), Santino (Ivan Santaromita) did the work to come in to the finish. There was no way we had enough to give Michael a lead out after that. It was up to me to get him onto John Degenkolb’s wheel with 1.5km to go. That’s where I left him.”

The Vuelta a España continues with stage four tomorrow, a 164.7km journey from Mairena Del Alcor to Cordoba with a 3rd and 2nd category climb in the final 60km.