British and Irish Lions coach Ian McGeechan declared his team the 'real winners', despite going down 0-2 in the three-Test series against South Africa, following a Morne Steyn injury-time penalty that gave the Springboks a 28-25 win in the second international on Saturday.

Speaking at a media briefing after the match at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria, McGeechan said his team should have won both the first and second internationals.

"We haven't had the rub of the green in some of the decisions," the Lions coach said after the second Test in which the Lions were outscored by three tries to one.

"In the end the result won't change and we have to accept that," McGeechan said, adding: "We could have been sitting here with two wins, we now sit here with two defeats.

"The performances the players put in were huge, in both games we were winners in a lot of respects."

The Lions coach, like his captain Paul O'Connell, spoke at length about the huge disappointment of coming so close in both Tests - 21-26 in Durban and 25-28 in Pretoria.

He also felt the discarding of a number of the more controversial ELVs have contributed to a better game of rugby.

"I though last week was a good Test and I had hoped that this week would be as well.

"Now that we've kicked the ELVs out the windows, we got back to some decent rugby."

McGeechan said he was "very proud" of his team's effort.

"They don't deserve to be 0-2 down, all round it was a fantastic effort"

The coach said the large number of injury-enforced replacement - five players left the field, including world class Irish centre Brian O'Drioscoll - disrupted his team's rhythm in the second half, after they had held a 10-0 and 19-8 lead at stages in the match.

The Lions captain, O'Connell, also spoke with pride of his team.

"We played some good rugby, especially in the first half," a bitterly disappointed O'Connell said.

"I am very proud of the effort," he said, adding: "Maybe we needed to play a bit more in the second half, like we did in the first. It [the second half] was a bit stop-start, but the first half produced a lot more running rugby."