It was dumb of the Springboks to wear white armbands of protest during Saturday's Test match. They seemed to suggest they were the victims, which could have been seen as an insult to their opponents.
Spectators would have been puzzled at the "Justice 4" slogan that appeared to be hand written on the strips of gauze that they sported.
An explanation to the media was that it denoted their solidarity with the No.4 Bakkies Botha who they believed had been wrongfully banned for a fortnight.
What the Springboks were really saying was that they have no faith in the disciplinary processes that govern professional rugby. These include a right of appeal against a sentence, which, as it turned out, was lodged and overturned. If the players wanted to register a protest, they had their captain to articulate it at his press conferences - and he did that quite forcibly last Friday.
For me, the white armbands merely rubbed salt into some nasty wounds that this series opened up in relations between the competing nations.
Raw nerves were already exposed from some of the on-field incidents and off-field responses. Had both teams worn armbands of protest, maybe that would have signalled a meaningful statement of concern.
Rugby, like all sports, produces situations that are sometimes hard to stomach. But whatever the rights or wrongs of an issue, the game has to remain bigger than the man. Botha may have been hard done by, but you then follow the processes available to you and ultimately take the medicine.
By the very nature of their work, professional rugby players are understandably driven by self interest. At the same time, they owe it to their team and indeed to their nation to show collective restraint.
With each passing day, I'm afraid to say, South African rugby's shares continue to plummet in the world game. We are pitching to host a World Cup in 2015 but ours is not a popular claim.
The conduct during the Lions tour, on several fronts, has not helped our cause.
Do not underestimate the British PR machine. It has characterised this tour as a triumph for the Lions and some South African critics seem to have bought into it. The bottom line is that the Springboks won an important series, although there is no doubt that South Africa underestimated the resolve of the Lions.
At the start, some pundits were advancing that the Springboks would win it 3-0 but, as a pal was saying on Saturday night, it could well have been 3-0 to the Lions. They butchered three tries in the first Test, only they will know how they lost the second Test, and then in the third, when it was too late, they pulled away against a Springbok team that showed far too many changes in personnel.