There was a common theme running through the planning for stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under with the writing on the wall, in big and bold letters. UAE Team Emirates-XRG were clearly the team to beat, after all how could they be expected to be anything but a force to be reckoned with given they had two former winners on the start line in Jay Vine and Jhonatan Narváez, plus Adam Yates on board as well.
Any one of those riders alone would be a formidable contender but together what they delivered was a perfectly executed plan, that actually went even better than they had hoped.
