Sir Ian McGeechan, Conor O'Shea, Jim Mallinder and Richard Cockerill all distanced themselves from the England manager's job on Monday.

With Martin Johnson's future uncertain, following England's dismal showing at the World Cup, a host of leading names have been linked with his job. However, Cockerill, Leicester's director of rugby and a team-mate of Johnson in Tigers teams of the 1990s and 2000s, was the most colourful in his rejection of such talk.

"Not interested at all," he said. "I'm two from seven, anyway – I can't even win a game for my club. And I'm from Leicester. I don't know if that gets me in or out. They haven't asked, and I don't expect them to, and I certainly wouldn't apply. I'd say that rules me out."

Cockerill combined his response with a consideration of the experience required to be manager of England.

"I'm nearly three years in the Leicester job," he said. "For me, you need longer in the club game. I didn't apply for the Leicester job, because I felt I wasn't ready at various points. When Pat [Howard] left, there were two other head coaches before I got the opportunity. I'm here through circumstance rather than ambition. And after the last few weeks I'm still doubting whether it was the right thing to do. But the England job's a huge job. Completely different objectives and management styles. Give me 10 more years of experience and you might think about it. I'm still trying to master the club game, never mind Test-match rugby."

Cockerill said he had been in contact with Johnson, but denied they had talked about his future.

"I've spoken to him on a personal level," he said. "He was disappointed, because he wants England to do well. He was just having some downtime with his family, trying to get a bit of perspective in his life, as probably everyone else needed to after the World Cup.

"The thing you've got to admire about Johno is that he doesn't need the job. He wanted it because he thought he could add something. He's got a huge amount of rugby knowledge. It's the things around that that have let him down. I still think there's a place for him in the England set-up and that he can still offer a lot to the environment."

Cockerill did have some advice, though, for his inexperienced friend. "As I found out quite quickly, you get paid to make decisions and sometimes you have to make awkward, hard decisions that people don't like.

"If Johno wants to stay on, he's probably got to sit down, accept there were mistakes made and make those harsh decisions. But that's no different to any club [director of rugby] every day of the week. You make decisions, people come and go, and you have to take it in a very professional, matter-of-fact manner, because, unfortunately, if you don't do it they'll find someone else who will. That's the nature of it, I'm afraid."