Scott Johnson would step aside now if Scottish Rugby found someone else they wanted to take the national team forward.
The interim head coach stressed his pride in his team and his faith in their progress after piloting Scotland to their best finish in the championship since 2006, claiming third place despite Saturday’s night’s 23-16 loss to France in Paris.
However, he wouldn’t dispute it if the original agreement to take Scotland through the RBS Six Nations and the summer tour to South Africa was ended early if the SRU found someone else.
He added that he “probably would be on the summer tour in some sort of capacity” but stopped short of saying whether it would be as head coach.
“There are a lot of ifs and buts, and I can’t sit here and pretend it’s something else,” he said. “I just want to sit down and make a decision that we all think is in the best interests of Scotland. If that’s without me then I’m big and ugly enough to cop it on the chin.
“The intention is probably to do the summer tour, but we haven’t sat down and talked about it. What I’m saying is that if someone else was available and they wanted to go that way, I’m not going to insist ‘this is what we agreed upon’.”
Asked if he wanted the job permanently, Johnson again refused directly to declare himself.
“I’m not here to delude you, or pretend anything,” he said. “I really like coaching the boys, but I liked my old job (as assistant to Andy Robinson) too, so I want to make sure I’m right for Scotland and they’re right for me.
“There’s nothing wrong with that. I just want to make sure the suits fits.”
Johnson admitted to not being sure of how much progress the team had made in the three months under his control.
“I’ve only been with this group of players for 10 weeks or whatever it’s been,” he pointed out. “I’ve seen them grow as people and I’ve seen them grow in certain areas of the game, but like all things you are trying to emphasise, sometimes they don’t do it quite right.
“It doesn’t mean they are poor. I can walk off tonight and talk about a team I can say I am proud of.”
The team ethic he wanted to change was Scotland’s tag of being good losers.
“People can take positives from this campaign but we’re competitive people, we don’t want to always be the good-looking bridesmaids,” he said. “We want to give this a real shake. Every team we’ve played against we’ve competed against and looked dangerous at times.
“That game was there tonight to nail them, so the confidence is in that you’re not far off. What disappointed me about this game is that we should have finished them off.”
Johnson believes that only two or three of his team will go on the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia, but that they deserve more.
He continued: “We’ll hopefully have a few with the Lions, maybe two or three. We have a scrum that’s vastly under-rated, so I’m not sure they’re going to look at our front row.
“We were up against a quality side and under a heap of pressure tonight. We had a competitive scrum, and I felt we did really well there at times.”
Scrum-half Greig Laidlaw said the team was united in wanting Johnson and forwards coach Dean Ryan to stay on permanently.
“Jonno has played a huge part in all of this,” said Laidlaw, who was perfect in placekicking in the swirling wind and rain in the Stade de France.
“He’s made a huge impact because he’s a very good coach. Hopefully he will stay on that would be my feeling and I know a lot of the boys feel the same way.
“He’s a great guy and he strikes a good balance between him and Dean. It would be great if (SRU chief executive) Mark Dodson and the powers that be can sort something out.”
It was crucial for the young team to have some stability as they moved forward, he argued.
“It’s about building an understanding. We don’t want to be working with a new set of coaches when we’re just getting settled with the guys already here,” he added.
“You want consistency and I believe these are the guys to take us forward at this moment in time.”
For a full Six nations round-up, including Steve Scott’s match report from Paris, see Monday’s Courier.