Former professional Morgan Fox is managing the Irish team and was hoping for a good showing from the guys in green today. "This is going to be the big day with Holme Moss and the Snake Pass featuring," he said. "Hopefully we can get David McCann and Paul Griffin up there. It is all up to us at this stage because we missed the move on the first day. We have got to pull something out of the bag.
"Griffin is psyched, he reckons he can get over the top with the leaders. If I move goes before that...I reckon something could happen going over the Cow and the Calf, that first climb. You have got 30 miles between that and the Holme Moss climb, so if we can get one or two up into the move before that, then Griffin and Davy can try to get across later on."
Indeed that is what happened, with Irish cyclo cross champion and FBD Insurance Rás stage winner Roger Aiken making the early break. He was in an eleven man group starting the climb of Holme Moss this afternoon, with the main fireworks set to start after that.
Fox said that he and the team are keen to make up for missing out on the stage one break. They chased hard with one or two other teams, and while they succeeded in reducing the lead from two minutes to forty seconds, they couldn't close that final gap. "It has been really disappointing, especially missing that move on the first day. That shouldn't have happened. The guys got caught out, they were down the back of the bunch and they didn't expect it to go. You have got one chance to get into the move, otherwise it is very hard to do it later. We chased hard but couldn't quite get it back. The Great Britain and Recycling teams came up later on to do a bit, but by then it was way too late."
Cyclingnews also talked to David McCann before the stage. "I will see how I go on the hills, I will take it as it comes. I don't have any big ambitions for this race as my programme is so busy afterwards, but we will just see how it goes. If I get into the right place at the right time, I will do something.
"After this race I do the Tour of Indonesia, a big ten day in Asia. I will hopefully come back to Europe and do the worlds road race, then go straight from there to another 2.2 in Iran for a week. Hopefully I will go to the Sun Tour and hopefully the Tour of Taiwan to end the season. Including this event, I have five stage races between now and November".
McCann and Giant Asia team-mate Ghader Mizbani are both highly placed in the Asian Tour classification. The aim is that one or other of them will win the competition.
