BOSS Sam Allardyce was pleased with the workout given to his Rovers side by Rangers on Sunday afternoon.
Rovers were sluggish in the opening half, showing signs of suffering from landing just 24 hours earlier as Rangers raced into a two-goal lead.
But Rovers, on Australian soil for the first time, were much improved in the second half and reduced arrears after David Dunn netted from the spot, but they just couldn't find that elusive equaliser.
Whilst not happy with the performance, Allardyce was however pleased with the levels of fitness shown at the Sydney Football Stadium.
"We are in the competition for the fitness side for us," said the Rovers boss. "I think it is fair to say to our lads that the performance was based on the journey because we only landed here on Saturday morning and I think that looking at our GPS system the lads couldn't really get about the pitch as we know they can.
"It showed us on our live data that they were way down and that is obviously due to travelling so far so late. That is not their problem, it is my problem.
"In the end we didn't really deserve anything out of the game, Rangers deserved to win obviously,
"So it was a good work out for us physically and we'll be more like ourselves on Wednesday night now.
"When you travel as far as we did, we were a total of thirty hours on the go because of the route we took to get here.
"So it is about adapting and doing our best, but in the end it has been a very good workout physically.
"Technically we weren't very clever and defensively we were awful, so we've a lot to work on from that point of view.
"But from a tournament point of view, and having watched some of the first game, this is what we expected, good quality opposition and by the end of the week it should lift up the match fitness to a level closer to what we expect."
Wednesday sees Rovers face AEK Athens who defeated Sydney FC 5-3 in the opening match of the 2010 Sydney Festival of Football. The game kicks off 6pm local time, 9am UK time.
Tickets are on sale for the tournament with prices starting from AU$29. See www.ticketek.com.au for further details.
