When the final whistle blows at Coca-Cola Park this afternoon, when the final press conference to consider the 2009 series between South Africa and the Lions is over, Ian McGeechan will take his first decent holiday for 37 years. The Lion king will lie down and reflect a while.

Well, there is the wedding next month of his daughter, Heather, a ruby wedding anniversary to celebrate with Judy, his wife, the launch in October of his autobiography and involvement with Sports Coaching UK, of which McGeechan gave up the chairmanship last year because of his role as Lions head coach. But rugby, for the first time since he was capped by Scotland in 1972 and began a relationship with the elite game that has never ceased, will take a back seat until the new year.

By then the feet will have become itchy and the teaching element that is so strong a constituent of the McGeechan DNA will be ready to go again. He wants to become involved with the political process that directs greater funding to all levels of sport in Britain, as he emphasised at a breakfast meeting this week with Richard Caborn, the former Sports Minister. He wants to mentor a new generation of coaches, to continue his own education by accepting the chance to watch Super 14 rugby in the southern hemisphere in greater detail; above all else, he wants to hand on the Lions flame.

“It would be very disappointing if I were to be approached again in four years' time,” McGeechan said after a career in which he toured twice with the Lions as a player (1974 and 1977), four times as head coach (1989, 1993, 1997 and 2009) and once as assistant coach (2005). His judgment after this tour is that it will not happen: he sees a coaching group developing with strong Lions links - Rob Howley, Graham Rowntree, Neil Jenkins; he sees Martin Johnson, about to start his second year as England team manager, as an equally strong candidate to carry forward the concept.

He does not see the 2009 series as a failure. The scoreline may stand at 2-0 to the Springboks - by this evening it may be 3-0 and the first time in 118 years that the Lions have left South Africa without even the solace of a draw - but the impact is far wider than that.

“The Lions have to be competitive, that was my biggest concern,” McGeechan, 62, said. “I'm disappointed not to have got one result from the Tests - I hope we get enough right at the weekend to do that - but I'm not disappointed with the level of performance. After 2001 and 2005, people had been challenging what the Lions were about but this has been a series that people have wanted to watch, to be part of, to be proud of the jersey.

“There does need to be more forward planning, decisions need to be taken away from individual union and club bodies because that's where it can become fractious, and if I could smooth the waters there, I would do it because the Lions give a player something he can't get anywhere else. Similarly, if the International Rugby Board is going to do things to the sharp end of the game, it needs current practitioners involved.

“Does the game need two referees, is that something we should be considering over the next five years? It might do, one to referee the game, the other to referee specific areas such as the breakdown. The game is so intricate, there are so many laws, what you want is consistency. One referee can look at one thing while scanning elsewhere, whereas the issue may be where they're scanning not where they're looking.

“But I wouldn't change anything we've done here. Players have had a real crack at Test selection, coaches have made judgments on tour form not on past form. This tour is longer than any modern player's experience, they're not used to it and if five or six are turned off, if they haven't responded to being here, then the tour is on a downer. There have been risks - putting out different teams for every game - but we wouldn't have got where we are without them. It just comes back to a ball going between the posts in injury time in Pretoria.”

South Africa: Z Kirchner (Bulls); O Ndungane (Sharks), J Fourie (Golden Lions), W Olivier (Bulls), J Nokwe (Cheetahs); M Steyn (Bulls), F du Preez ( Bulls); T Mtawarira (Sharks), M Ralepelle (Bulls), J Smit (Sharks, captain), J Muller (Sharks), V Matfield (Bulls), H Brüssow (Cheetahs), J Smith (Cheetahs), R Kankowski (Sharks). Replacements: B du Plessis (Sharks), G Steenkamp (Bulls), D Carstens (Sharks), S Sykes (Sharks), P Spies (Bulls), R Pienaar (Sharks), F Steyn (Sharks).
Lions: R Kearney (Leinster); U Monye (Harlequins), T Bowe (Ospreys), R Flutey (London Wasps), S Williams (Ospreys); S Jones (Scarlets), M Phillips (Ospreys); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), M Rees (Scarlets), P Vickery (London Wasps), S Shaw (London Wasps), P O'Connell (Munster, captain), J Worsley (London Wasps), M Williams (Cardiff Blues), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: R Ford (Edinburgh), J Hayes (Munster), A W Jones (Ospreys), D Wallace (Munster), T Croft (Leicester), H Ellis (Leicester), J Hook (Ospreys).
Referee: S Dickinson (Australia). Kick-off: 2pm.