SO WHAT happens now? The 3,000-odd names already on the Gullivers Sports Travel registration list for the 2009 Lions tour of South Africa probably tells us something — that in four years’ time, we will be packing our bags and setting off again. The atmosphere among the Sunday morning carousers in Wellington did not suggest otherwise. The present hosts want the Lions back, too, not simply because they derived such pleasure from devouring them.

A number of All Blacks approached Ian McGeechan, the Lions’ midweek coach, after Saturday’s game and said that never in their careers had they played a home international match in the same kind of environment. The Kiwi economy quite likes the Lions, too. As Bill Beaumont, the tour manager, said the next morning: “The Lions is probably the greatest brand in world rugby.”

The remotest suggestion here that the Lions may in any way be an endangered species invariably leads to a misty-eyed, romantic response delivered with the use of the words “unique” and “magic”. The clubs in England may despise the Lions for hauling their players off and returning them broken and battered, but such opposition is insufficient to kill this magnificent beast. Commercially it is still roaring.

And for all the lows of the past two weekends, the touring team have genuinely revelled in it. Coming down in a lift yesterday, Michael Owen, who was never near a place in the international side, was enthusing to McGeechan about the amazing experience he has had and the amount he has learnt.

But enough of revelry. Some time the Lions will have to start winning again and that is not going to be on Saturday. The picking-over of the bones of this pride began the moment the first international had been so limply gifted, but while it is conceded that Sir Clive Woodward, the head coach, has made a number of horrendous miscalculations and that the present All Blacks are horrendously good, what the past few weeks have also demonstrated is that the Lions’ concept is horrendously hard to make work.

After the midweekers had run up a century of points against Manawatu last Tuesday, McGeechan praised his men for their cohesion. “When you go from the individual to the collective,” he said, “that’s when everything is lifted.” The observation was poignant because the cohesion that night (against third-rate opposition) was unique. “The fact is,” Brian O’Driscoll, the captain, admitted yesterday, “we didn’t quite click as the talent in the room suggests.” Two matches to go and we are talking in the past tense.

Yet this is the deep dissatisfaction with Woodward’s stewardship: that his Lions never became more than the sum of their parts. How many players have shone? Who has played above themselves, announced themselves to the world? (Answer: one man alone, Ryan Jones, who wasn’t even picked in the original 45). And how many sparkling passages of rugby beauty will we treasure? Go past the first 15 minutes of the first match in New Zealand, against Bay of Plenty, and we are scratching our heads. As O’Driscoll said: “It’s a lost opportunity.”

We might have seen cohesion had Woodward honed a side for the internationals throughout consecutive Saturdays. But take that argument to the extreme, as Woodward did on Saturday: if it is a series win that is of sole import, he would have picked 22 players, taken them into a four-week camp in Melbourne and unwrapped them from the cotton wool only for the internationals.

But that flies in the face of the Lions’ ethos and this is why the Lions are such a beautiful anachronism. No other international side tour any more, they just play their international matches and run. They do not hang around playing provincial games, showcasing a concept that is more substantial than just a win-loss record and sustaining heavy injuries as they go. International rugby does not cater for that. Only the Lions do and they have been shipping record defeats.

Thus the conversation with Beaumont yesterday. How could we tailor the Lions’ structure to give them a better chance? “You’d try and make it longer,” he said, “but with the time constraints, that probably isn’t going to happen.” The conclusion? “Unless you have a 62-week year, I don’t know how you’re going to do it.”

There is another possibility: abolish the midweek side. If it is acknowledged that playing twice a week is impossible, then abandon the two-team formula, play one squad throughout three or four consecutive Saturdays, perming and improving combinations along the way. But, according to Beaumont, even this is not good enough. “I think that would ruin the concept, too. Lions is about going out into places where rugby teams don’t go.”

Maybe we will tinker, but the dichotomy is fascinating: can the requirements of cool, modern-day professionalism restore rugby’s beloved antique? Woodward tried his way and failed. A Lions tour at its best should be the full five-act drama; the way he has penned it, we already know the winners and losers, the heroes and villains, and we haven’t even got near the end.

• Brian O’Driscoll said yesterday he had made his peace with Tana Umaga, his rival captain, over the now notorious spear tackle. “Once I had an apology of sorts from Tana and I had spoken to him, as far as I was concerned the matter was cleared up,” he said.