Anybody out there feel guilty as hell now, whether back at home in the four nations, or out here among the South Africans who have demeaned the Lions? The Lions came heroically close yesterday in the cruellest Test, and it may have been you — yes, you — who cost them the game.

Pretoria is known as the Jacaranda City for the fleeting spring months when the trees are in purple bloom and soften the brutal functionality of this place. It is an appropriate city in which to mark the death of the Lions’ dreams, because South Africa has provided an uninspired, charmless (and unfair and lazy) environment for this ill-fated tour.

Let us blame our hosts, yet let us also blame ourselves. The Lions have been adrift here, living an existence independent of meaningful back-up from the rest of rugby in Britain and Ireland, and seen in South Africa not so much as an institution to be treasured, but as an opportunity to be milked for commercial gain.

Many South Africans are beginning to rival the New Zealanders, who now see the Lions and their supporters — who sat in a gigantic red wall yesterday, 25,000 strong — simply as a money-making machine. Official statistics show that the 2005 New Zealand tour made £100m from British and Irish pockets. Among South African hoteliers, taxi drivers, airlines, restaurateurs and tourist-trappers, the affection for the Lions borders on the delirious.

That is why, for the first time, and near the end of my seventh Lions tour, I am profoundly upset for them, profoundly anxious. It is too alarmist to say they will not tour again, but the Home Unions Lions committee must demand that for Australia 2013 and thereafter, the Lions as a squad, the Lions as a brand and the Lions as the biggest deal in rugby are given far more respect and encouragement. Otherwise, they are not coming.

All the bargaining power is theirs. Are the rugby authorities of the host countries going to tell their government and taxi drivers that they just lost the Lions and the £100m? And the chance to promote their own rugby with brilliant Test matches of the calibre of the past two Saturdays?

We accept the Lions are always up against local vicissitudes, customs, referees, that they stand out there with no anthem, usually underprepared, savaged by injury and are told to get on with it. Fine. Indeed, if the Springboks don’t go out to blast them at every point in the series, the Lions are demeaned from another angle.

But that is not the point. They were never given a level playing field. Most of the provincial tour programme on this trip has chilled the blood. The Springbok squad were excluded from it; so were the scores of South African players in Europe.

What was left was, with few exceptions, almost a parody of a Lions tour. Some of the action has been low-octane, played before banks of empty seats. It has afflicted the atmosphere and impact of the tour profoundly and afflicted the Lions’ development. No wonder they conceded such an appallingly soft try early in the Durban Test — it was the first time they had played hard rugby for weeks. The first item for the next tour must be that all home Test-squad players pitch up in the non-Test games.

The fixture list also seems to have been created with politicking provincial chairmen in mind. Why were we in Cape Town all last week to play the Emerging Springboks at sea level? We’d already been there to play Western Province, and yesterday’s Test was at altitude in Pretoria.

So while the Boks completed their preparations on Friday at leisure, the Lions were crawling through the roadworks nightmare that is Cape Town, and trying to negotiate the rebuilding zoo that is Cape Town airport — I am sure it will all be ready for World Cup 2010 but sure as hell, it is not ready now. The Lions must, for every future tour, begin Test week already in situ at the Test location. Those fine margins are crucial, as we saw at Loftus Versfeld.

Yet the misguided hosts have had co-conspirators back at home. Everybody these days — the four national unions, club and provincial bodies, national and other coaches — is ferociously professional. And yet, by their rapacity, their failure to see the benefits of winning Lions, they have denied them rest and preparation.

The same people who are desperate to dynamite any season involving the World Cup, to move and curtail competitions, put players in perma-camp, make spectacular accommodations and, in terms of coaching precision, employ separate manicurists for each hand — they will not move forward one season every four years by a fortnight to allow the Lions to breathe. Shameful.

As I say, if the host nations will not treasure the Lions, tours must be stopped. But if the next Lions are not given time to themselves, three weeks absolutely clear to rest and start the long process in which four different philosophies and tactical approaches become one, then again, the tour is off. Host country or home countries, it is up to you both. But please, don’t take long to decide. The Lions are losing among your smugness. And this tour has made a £4m profit for British and Irish rugby. What is the price of selling out the Lions, exactly?

So where does this trip stand among my seven? I have loved much of it. How can you not from this position of privilege? And to be fair, the average South African still respects what the Lions are. But in a sense this trip ranks lowest. Remember South Africa 1997, the first pro Lions? That was explosive, even cataclysmic, and it excited South Africa. It made money, sure, but it was based on sport.

My love of this glorious country, its wonders and miasma, is almost total. So is my respect for the harsh intensity of its rugby. But Lions tours must be run much more for the benefit of the Lions, and with some natural sporting justice. They have been heroic, and been let down.

Otherwise, and if South Africa is not sympathetic, these should be the last Lions in Africa. And they know where they can stick their jacarandas.