git describe relative to a given tag pattern

Hi

I'm trying to use git describe to describe the current status of my
tree with respect a given tag, or more specifically the latest tag
matching a specific pattern.

My repository has the following tags:

$ git tag -l lal-v*
lal-v6.6.0
lal-v6.6.0rc1
lal-v6.6.0rc2
lal-v6.6.1
lal-v6.6.2
$

And I want git describe to use the latest of these tags, so looking at
the git describe man page it seems that the --match option can allow
me to specify a pattern. This, however, doesn't seem to work:

$ git describe --match=lal-v* HEAD
fatal: No tags can describe 'cee13cbb25d0fa38f6e3bc6622bc751ebf35d2f0'.
Try --always, or create some tags.
$

quoting the pattern has no effect, what am I doing wrong here?

Cheers

Adam

PS: I'm using git-1.7.9