Stevie Hammell cut short his first holiday in four years to answer Motherwell's SOS call.
And the former Fir Park hero left Paisley to return to Arran and gather his family before looking at his next steps.
Academy director Hammell and under-18 coach Brian Kerr oversaw a 1-0 win in their Premiership opener at St Mirren, courtesy of Kevin van Veen's first-half penalty, despite Ricki Lamie being shown a straight red card for a lunging tackle on Keanu Baccus.
Hammell said: "I was in Arran, my first couple of days off in about four years, and then I got a call.
“I had to book a boat back – my car and my family are still over there.
“I’m leaving here to go back and get them, and then we’ll go back in tomorrow morning – it has been a lively couple of days!"
While Hammell wouldn't be drawn on whether he wanted the job full-time, he said: "The chairman [Jim McMahon] spoke to me after the game and we’ll have a little chat next week at some point, myself, Alan Burrows and the chairman, and we’ll see what the best is.
“Whatever they deem is to be the best thing for the football club, we’ll get after that.
“It has been a lot over the last 48 hours. It has been good, but it has been a lot.
“We’ve tried to cram in as much as we could in a short space of time, but also give the players an element of freedom to go and express themselves and bring their identity onto the pitch.
“In the last couple of days I’ve honestly not thought about it.
“We wanted to win today, we’ll chat in the next few days, but I imagine there will be a lot of people interested in it as well.
“Hopefully I’ll have a better answer at some point next week, but I’m in charge for the next few days at least.
“Then we’ll get some information from above and then take it from there.
“But it was just about this day, this game, and we’ve done what we set out to do.”
Van Veen netted from the spot in 42 minutes after Scott Tanser had handled Blair Spittal's long-range effort, and though St Mirren battered their defence, they held out for a good win, despite Lamie's late red card.
Hammell said: "It was a huge win, it was needed, it has been a disappointing week with performances, results, the manager leaving, but the message of the last two days was that we were coming here to win.
“That was the plan, everybody was aware of that, at times we had to defend, especially going down to 10 men, but we came here to win, and we did.
“I enjoyed it, the support the fans have given me over the years has been fantastic, and today was no surprise, even with the week that they’ve had.
“The disappointment of going out when we shouldn’t have, to come out in their numbers to support us and me was brilliant.”
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