Andy Robinson was defiant last night when asked if he was poised to resign or is even considering his position, after Scotland completed their RBS Six Nations Championship campaign without a win.
However, the team's head coach did admit that he has much to think about before reporting back to the Scottish Rugby Union's top brass.
Having this season also led the first Scotland team through a World Cup campaign in which they failed to reach the knockout stages, he knows the pressure is on to prove he has a genuine vision of a way forward for the national side after three championships encompassing 15 matches that have now produced a total of two wins.
"I'm still contracted until 2015," he said. "I'll be doing a debrief of the game, and a debrief of the Six Nations, and I'll be meeting with [SRU Chief Executive] Mark Dodson to go through that."
Robinson then claimed that the decision on whether he should continue would still be his own.
"I'm head coach of Scotland rugby," he added. "I'm going away to reflect on the Six Nations and reflect on the future in terms of the positivity we have, the players we have and putting a plan together for the way forward.
"There's a lot to take in, in terms of what's happened and it's about looking at the future, what's key for the future and what's best for Scottish rugby.
"Now is not the time to be discussing that with the feelings that everybody has."
Reflecting on yesterday's defeat, he made little attempt to disguise his disappointment at the contribution of Ross Ford, whom he had made his stop-gap captain for the campaign when his first choice Kelly Brown was ruled out through injury.
"The errors that we made were in the line-out," he said. "It's unfortunate that Ross overthrew today and our inaccuracies enabled them to have the field position and apply the pressure.
"When we got the territory, our lineout broke down."
Nor did Ford make any attempt to defend himself from the criticism of him.
"We didn't get the possession in the right areas and that was simply through the line-out and myself," he said. "I was below par today and turned over too many line-outs in their half.
"Obviously all the boys are disappointed with the result. We did a lot of attacking in our own half and you simply can't do that. It's the worst feeling I've had in my Scotland career. It's not a good place to be in at the moment."
If Scotland have been metaphorically caught with their trousers down in this campaign, that was literally the case for debutant prop Jon Welsh, called into the team at the shortest possible notice.
He was probably the team's best player, which in itself may raise questions about the decision-making of the coaching staff, but the lateness of his call, after Allan Jacobsen sprained his ankle at the end of the warm-up, required a rapid gear change.
"I had the wrong shorts on and had to change them in the tunnel," Welsh said. "I was in my boxers in the tunnel as we lined up. Al Kellock pointed out the TV camera was on me but I just said I was OK from the waist up!"
If that introduced a rare hint of levity from the Scotland players as they contemplated the sorry place in history they have just acquired, it was the Italians who were really enjoying themselves after a win they felt should have been even better, such was the extent of their superiority.
"Maybe this game will not go down as a classic but it is still good to win," said Sergio Parisse, their inspirational captain after he and his men had thrilled a capacity 76,000 crowd in the Stadio Olimpico with a victory that reinforced rugby's status as the fashionable sport in Rome.
"We can't afford to dominate teams as we did today without scoring more points, but I'm happy we won."
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