Dave Brailsford was a happy man at the end of the Tour Down Under, able to reflect on two victories in Australia for his new team, and to declare: "We've arrived."

"It's very satisfying," said Brailsford, Team Sky's team principal. "If you'd told me we'd come away with two wins when we got on the plane to come down here, I'd have taken it with both hands.

"There's still a lot of learning to be done, but there aren't many negatives. It's a great start, a great finish, and we'll go home on a high."

Asked to identify the main lesson from the week, Brailsford said: "It's undoubtedly that in this sport, the greatest strength is in the whole team. You're not going to win anything on your own at this level. Unity is so important, and we've seen it done with the exemplary performance by HTC-Columbia all week, and credit to them. They were brilliant.

"But our lads today came in with a plan and executed it absolutely to perfection. To finish first and second again [thanks to Chris Sutton and Greg Henderson] is phenomenal. We took Chris into the team knowing he had the ability to win stages like this. And Greg's been tremendous all week. It's one of the first times he's led a team into a race like this, and he was a credit to himself."

Respect for Columbia

Brailsford admitted that HTC-Columbia, who provided the overall winner in André Greipel, who also picked up half of the Tour Down Under's six stages, remain the team to aim for. "There's no doubt about that. They're a well-oiled team, they're firmly in the groove of winning; they are the benchmark and we are the underdogs.

"But we've taken them on and beaten them twice, and we've got to be satisfied with that. Greipel is up there with anybody as a sprinter, but the fact we have beaten him shows the importance of the team - it's about organisation, commitment and willingness to take it on.

"There's a lot that goes on in a stage race that people don't see - the grind of sitting at the front. Columbia sat on the front of the peloton all day, riding hard, and still managed to set up the finishes - that takes some doing. And that's where we've still got some room to develop.

"It's been a superb race," added Brailsford, "with a field that was in very good shape. This wasn't a warm-up race - the guys were going really, really hard, and a lot of teams had their 'A' teams here. We know we've got some work to do, some areas to look at, but I think the guys showed real guts today. They have done tremendously well."

That was echoed by Sports Director Sean Yates who said: "Despite it being a tough week, the boys were so excited at the start today and they've just socked it to them - it was a joy to watch."