Sam Allardyce felt that his young side were caught cold at the Sydney Football Stadium on Wednesday evening.

Like the Rangers match before, Rovers started slowly in their second match in the Festival of Football, quickly going behind by two goals against AEK Athens.

Rovers rallied in the second half, pulling a good goal back courtesy of Phil Jones, but they couldn't find that attacking edge to grab a second.

"Our first half was obviously one where we got caught out by their two quick forwards, and unfortunately our two young centre halves didn't cope with that very well," said Allardyce post-match.

"So they scored a couple of goals in quick succession and it wasn't really what we were looking for in the first half.

"We sorted it out at half time and changed it around a little bit and we got an awful lot better and we got a really really good goal from Phil Jones."

The Rovers boss wasn't too impressed with the actions of some of the AEK players, with David Dunn coming under particularly close attention.

"We had to take David Dunn off for his own protection, he didn't get any from the referee" added Allardyce. "We had to protect him because of the volatile nature of the Greek midfielders just going straight through him.

"We were disappointed in that they took such an attitude in a friendly game, rather than playing football they were intent on stopping our best player which meant that it got a little heated at time, but at least David is okay.

"But our second half performance was good, it was a really good goal from Phil Jones and in the end we had three 18-year-olds in the side playing.

"Unfortunately with Gael Givet coming off with a dead leg, and not being able to call upon Chris Samba or Ryan Nelsen yet, we are obviously a little weaker in the defence and that is why we have conceded four goals in the two games."