'A strange kind of glory' as legacy-defining win eludes Lions

The Lions could have secured their first series whitewash since 1927

Long before the British and Irish Lions' searing experience in Sydney had concluded - a night of rugby drama, biblical weather, horrible injury and delays because of lightning warnings in the distance - a statistic was passed around the stadium concerning the gigantic Will Skelton.

The lock, who is about the size of one normal human being standing on the shoulders of another, was a colossal presence in Australia's victory, just as he was in the time he spent on the field in the second Test having not been passed to fit to play in the series opener.

The Lions beat Australia 39-22 in the time Skelton was not on the pitch. With Skelton on the field, the Wallabies won 38-24.

Can one man make such an enormous difference? When it is Skelton, unquestionably yes.

The Lions were fortunate that he was nowhere to be seen when they won in Brisbane and that he went off early in the second half in Melbourne. In Sydney, he was a huge influence, along with Taniela Tupou and Dylan Pietsch, two players who Schmidt only called on for this Test, when the series was already over.

At the end, there was to be no 3-0, no whitewash, no title of greatest-ever Lions, the title they had talked about and felt they were pursuing on Saturday.

There was a trophy and silver ticker tape and a lap of honour. There were words of triumph from Dan Sheehan and Maro Itoje that sounded a little forced. On a night when the heavens opened, the only devils out there were the ones in gold.

And so, it is done. A 36-day blur in Australia. Nine games, eight wins and one loss. From Dublin to Perth to Brisbane, from Sydney to Canberra and from Adelaide to Melbourne these Lions will have travelled more than 25,000 miles on a dozen different aircrafts by the time they get home.

Not exactly the boys of 1888, those 22 Lions pioneers who spent eight months gadding about New Zealand and Australia playing 35 games, but a fair old trip none the less.

A finale that will never be forgotten

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.

Triumphant Lions have also frustrated

Will Skelton played 107 of a possible 240 minutes across the series

All of those words and all of the vibes coming from the Lions screamed about their desire for 3-0. One by one they lined up to talk about how they hadn't yet delivered their best stuff, the inference being that was coming in Sydney, history made with a flourish in the final Test.

Itoje said it, Russell said it, Huw Jones said it, Jack Conan said it, Farrell said it. They all sang from the same hymn sheet. "We've not played to our maximum, we know there's a lot more in us, we're better than we've shown and we'll prove it on Saturday."

But they didn't. They targeted 3-0 and they did not deliver. They said they wanted to be remembered as one of the great Lions teams but 2-1, as good as it will feel to be winners, doesn't cut it in legacy terms. They wanted more.

The weight of their achievement is the talking point. If all these Lions tell you that they have not played the way they know they can, then we have to take them at their word. And Saturday's disappointment only reinforces that. By their own estimation, they have not been nearly as good as they thought they would be.

No proper analysis can just ignore the reality of how underplayed the Wallabies were in the first Test. That's on Schmidt cossetting too many of his big names.

The Wallabies were also denied the rampaging brilliance of their best player Rob Valetini for all bar 40 minutes of the series. Even then they were one momentous call away from levelling the series in that extraordinary endgame in Melbourne. The Lions have triumphed but they have also frustrated.

The sense before Sydney is that there was a better team in there than they showed. That's a highly questionable one now. The Wallabies won of four of the six halves of rugby played in the series.

Great individuals, but not a great Lions squad

Mari Itoje is joint-fifth on the all-time list of successive Lions Test starts on nine

What this tour has been about in many senses is a series of remarkable Lions players. Yes, they have now been defeated and the dream of a landslide is dead and buried, but there are still some world class players amid a less-than-world-class squad.

Until he played against Argentina in Dublin, Furlong had only appeared in nine games this season because of injury. There were doubts about his fitness and in the early games in Australia some questions about his capacity to find his old greatness.

Bit by bit, Furlong built into the tour. Stronger and stronger. Big scrums, big carries, big influence. It was something to see.

Having started nine Lions Tests in a row, Furlong emerged as a great in Australia, Beaten, but still in the pantheon of Lions forwards.

Itjoe is undoubtedly another. At times at Stadium Australia the hits were so severe that they made you wince. Itoje had to come off early, a body blow, personally and collectively.

Coming to Australia he had already played 28 games this season - 10 Tests - with an average of 74 minutes in each one.

He was not himself against Argentina in Dublin, but he has been a powerhouse since then, not your normal captain, not your tub-thumping firebrand. He's considered, he's clinical and with nine Tests in a row, he too, joins the pantheon of Lions legends.

This is the story of the tour - not a Lions squad that has proven its greatness but one with enough great individuals in it to be compelling. Tadhg Beirne and Tom Curry were both doubted early in the trip, both seemingly under a bit of heat for their Test place.

The opening seconds of the first Test saw the pair of them setting the agenda, Curry with a monstrous hit on James Slipper and Beirne swooping like a bird of prey to win a penalty. Marker laid down and then some.

Sheehan and Finn Russell reside in that category, also. Russell's performance in the second Test was non-vintage until those game-defining minutes at the end. His control, his calmness, his wit and game management were razor sharp exactly when they needed to be.

The conditions in Sydney were a fly-half's worst nightmare. He battled on. He tried to make things happen while on the back foot. He defended bravely. He lost, but he gave it everything.

Ultimately, the 2025 Lions have done a job, but not the job they so publicly talked about. They'll leave with brilliant memories of days and nights together, of wins on the road that bonded them, of a series won, but Saturday will nag away at them forever. That never goes away.

"Bittersweet" is the word Beirne used. Not many Lions teams in history get a chance to go 3-0 in the series. They had it in their hands and with one thunderous hit after another from Skelton and his band of behemoths, they let it slip away.