The Scots were whitewashed in last year's tournament and after a disappointing Autumn Test series, in which the Scots failed to get the two wins out of four games that had been publicly demanded by Williams, there is little confidence that an improvement in results is imminent.

However, Williams, looking forward to the opener against defending champions France in Paris early next month, declined to put pressure on his squad by setting specific goals.

He said: "We are not going to get hemmed in to talking about wins and losses, it is a rod that comes back to beat you later on.

"In truth, there is not a lot of winning going on. Ireland can go into the championship believing they can win and saying that they have the easiest starts against Italy and us - that's fine, they can make those statements.

"I am not going to do that. I will say that when we go to France I want the team to put in a performance that the nation can be proud of because we need to get some pride back into the people of Scotland in terms of rugby.

"That is what I am asking of the players and if we do that then there is the chance we can win.

"They have had two tough losses and they might be vulnerable in the first game so that is the best time to get them."

Williams also revealed the reasons behind reappointing Gordon Bulloch as his captain after the Glasgow Hooker skippered the side in the last year's Autumn Tests.

However, the Scots' coach admitted the armband would not necessarily be Bulloch's on a permanent basis.

He said: "The Autumn internationals were such a brief period of time, only four games and Gordon did a fine job in that time.

"Scott Murray and Chris Paterson were captains over a much longer period, the Australian tour and the Six Nations, and we thought Gordon deserved a longer stint in that role.

"Gordon hopefully will be a British and Irish Lion which means another player will get an opportunity to be captain against Romania in the summer and then we will have a look after that.

"In the next Autumn series we might give a younger guy a go, we will decide, but either way we have been delighted with Gordon's role in the team.

"We just need to look at the one series at a time until we can grow a bit as a team, so we will get the Six Nations sorted and we will let the rest look after itself."