Rob Houwing - Sport24 chief writer

Pretoria – Magnanimity was in notably short supply among the British and Irish Lions brains trust as they bitterly digested the surrender of the Test series to the Springboks at Loftus.

It was partly understandable: even the most partisan South African fans will acknowledge deep down that the Lions had opportunities to be 2-0 up in the three-Test series, instead of suddenly 2-0 down and out of the reckoning with Johannesburg still to come.

The tourists threw the kitchen sink (sometimes even the granite tops, it seemed) at the Boks in the Jacaranda City … and still it wasn’t enough against the World Cup champions.

That very fact ought to have orchestrated at least a measured doffing of caps to the home side by the Lions’ coach of rightful gravitas, Ian McGeechan, and captain Paul O’Connell when they fronted up to the media on Saturday night.

But the focus, thanks to the travelling pressmen, was primarily on the Lions’ catalogue of “could have beens” and the various controversial issues from a fiery, full-blooded Test.

The baton of graciousness was picked up instead by Will Greenwood, the former England and Lions centre, who told the Sky Sports website in tribute to the Bok rearguard rampage: “It is a great team that can come back like that. The Springboks had been so under the cosh and yet stayed in the game.”

Quite so. Re-run the match in its entirety and it becomes ever more apparent that this seasoned Bok side, under its fine leader John Smit, has “BMT” in sack-loads: it was responsible for the crucial last half-hour or so of the contest being definitively bossed by the eventual winners, and this after their humiliating back-footed status in the first half.

Look at the match again and you can also see that well nigh as many Lions players flirted with over-robustness and ill-discipline as their pilloried Bok counterparts – although there is no excusing Schalk Burger’s rank foul play in the opening minute that might so easily have cost South Africa the match had they played 79 minutes with 14 men instead of only 10.

Whatever the outcome of his citing hearing (unknown as this was penned) Burger should play no part in the final Test as a team punishment for his gross stupidity. Well, no, not only as a form of censure: Heinrich Brussow richly deserves to recapture the No 6 jersey anyway after his 18 minutes of restless industry off the bench at the tail-end of the match.

The tenacious Free Stater was almost as influential as another supersub, Morne Steyn, in the amazing turnaround, and commentator Bob Skinstad was so right when he noted: “(Brussow) could steal a ball through a key hole.”

While you have to feel sorry for Ruan Pienaar, still coming to grips with the demands of flyhalf and decent in the first Test, an ice-cool Steyn did enough (um, how about clinched the series?) in a short time to warrant a maiden start against the Lions at Coca-Cola Park next weekend.

Yet it is uncertain whether logic will prevail in selection for the dead-rubber encounter: there are whispers that Bok coach Peter de Villiers, arguably more mad-professor than ever in his tetchy answers to journalists’ questions post-Loftus, will push for some “creative” picks now that the series is done and dusted.

It would be a hare-brained mistake, for there is some unfinished business for the Springboks to take care of.

The clean sweep is “on” and they must make every effort to achieve it, if only to finally subdue all northern hemisphere belief that it is the Lions, instead, who should be playing the Johannesburg finale from an unassailable position.

Despite a disturbingly buxom injury toll from Loftus that could have an important bearing on their prospects in the Big Smoke, McGeechan insists that his side will come out firing for an overdue victory in the last Test: “Just wearing a Lions jersey is motivation enough.”

Still, Smit has also fired out an encouraging missive about remaining Bok ambitions, correctly pointing out that his side “haven’t fully hit the button yet”.

The Boks simply must go for the jugular. For it is very, very hard to quibble about 3-0, isn’t it?

While a few experienced Springbok warhorses are off best levels at present – Bakkies Botha, Jean de Villiers and Adi Jacobs among them – the starting XV for Coca-Cola Park to be named on Tuesday ought to look something like this, assuming everyone is fit: Francois Steyn, JP Pietersen, Adrian Jacobs, Jean de Villiers, Bryan Habana, Morne Steyn, Fourie du Preez, Pierre Spies, Juan Smith, Heinrich Brussow, Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, John Smit (capt), Bismarck du Plessis, Beast Mtawarira.

Not too many punters would beef, however, if a place were found in the backline for Jaque Fourie for a rather fuller game than he has had of late …