It began with as fine a valedictory performance as any football manager could have hoped for and ended with a chastening reminder of why the intervention of HeraldSport in Scottish rugby’s failing development strategy had been so important.

In between there were opportunities for sentimental reflection and brand new experiences in a year of watching competitive live sport that was packed with vast diversity.

That five goal Ne’er Day thrashing of Motherwell at the hands of Lanarkshire neighbours Hamilton was Alex Neill’s last match in charge at New Douglas Park before he subsequently steered then stumbling Norwich City back into the English Premier League. Surely he was manager of the year on both sides of the border.

Three hundred and sixty one days later a derby of a very different sort saw something unprecedented as close to six times as many people as had been at Hamilton were at a domestic rugby match witnessing the snuffing out of a vaunted Glasgow Warriors side by a team whose efforts revolve around a back-row of John Hardie, who has newly discovered his Scottishness, Cornell du Preez, who intends to next year and Mike Coman, who could if he chooses to.

With Blair Cowan, Dave Denton and Josh Strauss they add to the mix of players our similarly imported coaches have felt forced to acquire as successors to the likes of Grand Slam winners John Beattie, the Calder twins, John Jeffrey, David Leslie, Iain Paxton and Derek White in order to get Scotland competitive again.

Good as some of them are and baffling as the treatment of the likes of Ally Hogg and John Barclay will always be, it is a withering indictment of what has happened on the development front. Instead of whining about the inclusion of the excellent Hardie, Scottish rugby’s commentators should be - as HeraldSport so constructively did last year when offering Frank Hadden the platform to force SRU administrators into improving their systems - examining those failings and, more importantly the solutions required.

My football year meanwhile included further highlights, notably watching Thomas Muller show off his skills at Hampden a few months after seeing, on the same patch of grass, Inverness Caley become the latest to benefit from the welcome widening of opportunities for those outside the Old Firm to enjoy big days as they claimed their first major trophy.

During a bizarre footballing March I could also claim, tongue firmly in cheek, to be uniquely qualified among my Herald colleagues to cover the month of Celtic-Dundee United clashes because none of the others had covered a rugby-style Test series with its ebbs and flows.

It was, though, a great year for the sport to which I have devoted most time down the years as its best ever World Cup rekindled genuine affection that had dissipated through years of Scottish rugby spin and politicking.

England may have made a mess of their own campaign but their administrators staged a magnificent tournament which elevated rugby to a new level in both competitive terms and global public consciousness, ending with a match containing every element required to turn what had already been special into an epic competition.

On which note, for all that it meant missing the opening World Cup weekend, sampling the excitement that led to Andy Murray’s righteous selection as British sport’s outstanding individual achiever when covering the Davis Cup semi-final in Glasgow, was a joyous reminder of how Scots can get behind their own when given the chance.

Hardie, Cowan, du Preez et al can, though, feel encouraged by the evidence of how we celebrate those we adopt too, as provided by the reception accorded Tom Watson late on a murky July evening, when he strolled down golf’s most celebrated home stretch. It was a privilege to be among the handful following along inside the ropes and feeling the warmth conveyed.

A few months later it was disappointing to be recording the retirement of another superb sportsperson not least because Imogen Bankier was born four years after Watson claimed the last of his post-war record five Open Championship wins.

Witnessing our best ever badminton player’s driven approach has, however, generated optimism about the advancement of women’s sport, as has watching and talking to Eve Muirhead, perhaps Britain’s most driven sportswoman.

Those aforementioned new experiences included chasing after cyclists in a lead car on a stage of the Tour of Britain before, days later, the year’s biggest surprise which was the spectacle of the cross country element of the European Eventing Championships at Blair Castle over Ian Stark’s brilliantly devised course.

There were inspiring conversations, too with swimmer Ellie Simmons; her would-be fellow Paralympian Scott Meenagh, the ex-Para turned rower; and the Main family who have turned Saltcoats into a centre of excellence for table tennis before this month then brought a final unexpected pleasure when heading 13 miles offshore to welcome Phil Sharp as he completed his record-setting effort in negotiating Land’s End to John O’Groats by sea.

This was a test run for the much bigger trial to come of seeking to contest the Vendee Globe round-the-world challenge which starts in November, using only renewable energy suggesting that, if future generations are to live in a world containing the necessary green space to pursue most of the activities listed above, it is not over-stating things to consider his on-going adventure as the most important of all 2015’s sporting stories.