It was a flat feeling in the aftermath. The Lions were desperately poor; out-battled, out-played, well beaten.
What will we remember this series by? How close it turned out to be? How that stunning call late, late in the day in Melbourne might have changed everything had it gone the other way?
We will recall how the Wallabies, written off and almost humiliated after the first Test in Brisbane, fought back magnificently. How Schmidt wrong-headedly, rested so many of his Test players ahead of Brisbane and left them drastically undercooked.
Sydney was a searing occasion. Weird and wonderful. For weeks the Lions travelled around this magnificent land without anybody saying boo to a goose.
There was no aggression thrown at them, no sledging, nothing to throw them off their stride. The entire tour looked like it was meandering towards a 3-0 snoozefest until the Wallabies suddenly found themselves in Melbourne.
Now things got interesting. We’ll always have the MCG. More than 90,000 in the stadium, the largest ever for a Lions game and one of the greatest Lions occasions in an age.
The night the series was won had everything that so many of the other games did not.
A Wallaby performance, an electrified home support, a Lions team in a giant hole and a finale that will never be forgotten.
When the Lions return here in 12 years time we will still be talking about the rights and wrongs of Jac Morgan’s clearout in the last play.
That moment immediately entered the top-10 most controversial episodes in Lions history. Opinions blazed like wildfires. Proper touring, as Andy Farrell might put it.
In the aftermath, Schmidt made like a scientist when talking about the g-forces that went through the body of his man, Carlo Tizzano.
In trying to explain why Tizzano was hurled backwards out of that final ruck holding his head (rather than his neck where the contact came) he started citing Newton’s Third Law – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We nodded along. Yes, Joe, of course.
Across Sydney, the victorious Lions were zen warriors. Itoje quoted bible scripture, Farrell quoted, kind of, the American clergyman and psychologist, Norman Vincent Peale when talking about shooting for the moon and, even if you miss, landing among the stars.
We had a sit-down with a contemplative Tadhg Furlong. “I’ve heard a lot of people explain Lions tours and I probably haven’t found an explanation in a verbal form that matches how you feel about it as a player. It’s a special thing. It really is.
“It’s not hard to motivate yourself [when the series is already won[. My motivation is obvious. I probably won’t play for the Lions again [he will be 36 in New Zealand in 2029]. It’s been very good to me. Sometimes the last memory is the lasting memory you have in a jersey. I want it to be a good one.”
Lovely. Only it wasn’t. Furlong looked exhausted and devastated afterwards. A strange kind of glory.
