ROVERS boss Graeme Souness defended his side's pre-season preparations as they made a spectacular start to their European tour with a 12-0 victory over Austrian part-timers Abtenau last night.

Matt Jansen scored with four and Craig Hignett a hat-trick to lead the goal-blitz as Graeme Souness's promotion heroes kicked off their three-game tour in stunning style.

But new £7 million striker Corrado Grabbi was forced to miss the fun after picking up a foot injury in training over the weekend and now faces a fight to be fit for the next game against German outfit Crailsheim tomorrow.

Fellow new-boys Tugay Kerimoglu and Gordon Greer did make their debuts last night, however, after joining Souness's Ewood revolution over the summer.

And Greer even managed to mark his first appearance with a goal as a total of seven different players got their names on the scoresheet.

The match itself ended up developing into something of a farce as the Austrian minnows failed to bridge the yawning gulf in class despite being bolstered by a number of players from neighbouring teams.

But Souness today insisted the game was still a worthwhile exercise as Rovers eased their way back into competitive action after a two-month absence.

"For where we are at this stage in our plans, I think this type of game is ideal," said Souness. "Maybe in three or four years time, if we are still here and everything is going to plan, then we might have a squad who could go out and play Bayern Munich in our first warm-up game.

"That might happen or it might not but I think, when you consider where we've been for a week and the games we'll play on this tour, then it's ideal for what we want at this stage in our pre-season preparations."

"I made a mistake at Glasgow Rangers one year, for instance, when we went off into Europe and played something like eight games abroad against foreign opposition then came back to Britain thinking 'ay, we're ready.'

"But then you come back and play a totally different kind of football and it took us two, three or even four games to pick up the pace of things after that.

"So what we've done here is to start off playing easy opposition then go back to playing clubs like Port Vale and the rest because that's going to be more like the football we'll encounter on a regular basis. At the end of the day, it's all about being ready for August 18 -- that's all that matters.

"And this was a worthwhile exercise in terms of fitness if nothing else."

Jansen and Hignett may have hogged the headlines for their goal exploits but Souness was particularly pleased by the performance of Tugay, who completed a full 90 minutes and looked a class act on his debut.

"I still think he's a wee bit behind the rest of the lads in terms of fitness because he hasn't done all the work that everyone else has," said the Rovers boss.

"But he's a footballer and I think our supporters will like him, as they'll like watching Grabbi as well next season.

"They are both exciting players as individuals and our fans will certainly enjoying watching them as they'll enjoy watching Matt Jansen, David Dunn and Damien Duff as well.

"Grabbi had a wee problem with his foot which is why he didn't play here. We just felt it wasn't really worth risking him because we've been working twice a day and there's been lots of hard running for him.

"But his chance will come over the next few days."

John Curtis, Marcus Bent, Damien Johnson and Alan Mahon also sat out last night's game after picking up a variety of niggles in training.

But they should be involved again at some point over the next few days before Rovers head home at the weekend.