Rob Kearney slumped against a goalpost. Luke Fitzgerald lay prone on his back, looking up at the blue, highveld sky. The thoughts of Ronan O’Gara, never mind the lacerated left eye that left him unable to see from it later, do not bear imagination.

The Lions were strewn across the Loftus Versfeld pitch on Saturday while all around them, South Africa celebrated the winning of the series.

Later came the bitterness and the attempts to understand how two internationals that were winnable had been lost. The most useless expression in sport emerged: “What if . . . ”

What if Schalk Burger had been given a red card rather than a yellow for gouging Fitzgerald’s eye in the first minute? Or the game had not gone to uncontested scrums for nearly all of the second half, or the Lions midfield had remained intact?

Nothing will bring it back. These underrated Lions, with Simon Shaw giving the performance of his 15-year senior career, had given their best shot against the world champions and had fallen so agonisingly short to the latest of penalty goals by Morné Steyn, who, quite rightly, deserves the utmost praise. The Bulls fly half, in only his second international, but on his home ground, made sure that John Smit, his captain, gave him the kick at goal, from his own half, which snatched a merited draw from the Lions.

Poor O’Gara. He so hoped to start at fly half, for the first time in an international on his third Lions tour, and when he came on with 13 minutes remaining, there was time for him to miss a tackle on Jaque Fourie that led to South Africa’s third try and to make the illegal challenge on Fourie du Preez, which gave Steyn his opportunity to win the match.

If Phil Vickery was the fall guy in Durban, O’Gara followed here, which only confirms how unforgiving the international arena can be for the most experienced of players.

Chasing his own kick, O’Gara had to go for the ball in the air or let Du Preez return to earth, then attempt to wrap him up in a tackle. Instead he ran clumsily through the Springboks scrum half’s legs, upending him, and left the referee no option.

There was another option for Berdos when Burger tangled with Fitzgerald, but he needed firmer guidance from his touch judge on an incident that he did not see — and he did not get it.

Burger should not have been winning his 50th cap. The Springboks should have retained Heinrich Brüssow on the flank, as he demonstrated in the last quarter when he emerged as a replacement, but South Africa have a reservoir of experience and one of the great captains. Smit refused to allow panic when the Lions led 10-0, then 19-8, and Victor Matfield and Pierre Spies kept doing what they do best and the game came back to them.

Would it have done if both Lions props had not left the field six minutes into the second half? Reversing the situation in Durban, the Lions had the upper hand in the scrum. They were working the Springboks forwards hard and felt, when Gethin Jenkins and Adam Jones departed, that their opponents were given a breather.

It is so fundamental an area of the game, such massive statements can be made, as Tendai Mtawarira did in Durban, as Jones did when Bismarck du Plessis and Mtawarira went skyward on their own put-in five metres from the Lions line.