MATHEW HAYMAN concedes a lack of confidence has stopped him evolving in his 12 years as a professional into a one-day classic winner.

However, as the 34-year-old from Camperdown looks to a new season with the British Sky team, for which he has been a star domestique since 2010, he realises he has a golden opportunity to rectify that.

Optimistic … Mathew Hayman, who hopes to claim a classic victory, warms up on the Tour of Qatar this month. Credit:Getty Images

Hayman, whose winning highlights include the 2006 Commonwealth Games road race in Melbourne and the 2011 Paris-Bourges race in France, could become a beneficiary of the British Sky team's plan to show it is not just a team that can win tours such as the Tour de France.

The team's campaign to try to win stage races will be as strong as ever with British riders Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome leading, but Sky also wants to show it can deliver in the one-day classics. To do that, it has created a classics squad that, like its grand tour line-up, races and trains together. ''Last year, we were ranked as No.1 team,'' Sky's Norwegian classics team director, Kurt Asle Arvesen, said. ''But if we want to be looked at as the best team in the world, we need to perform in the classics as well - not only in stage races. The tour program - the Giro and Tour - will keep running like last year, and that is something that is always improving; but now we have a lot of focus on the classic guys and we will give them all the support.''