The year of destiny is underway, the one in which we find out whether those running Scottish rugby are true strategists, wishful thinkers or, perhaps, merely desperate bluffers.

Albeit last night's result denied them the pleasure of seeing a Scottish team at the top of the Pro12 table it was, in its way, symbolically encouraging for the governing body that the year began with an underdog triumph in the 1872 Challenge Cup.

That Edinburgh have shown enough this past week to suggest they are at last ready to contribute more to the national cause, while the once free-scoring Tim Visser last night rediscovered his nose for try opportunities is, then, the latest reason to enter a New Year full of hope.

This one, though, is meant to be particularly special. This is the one in which the SRU hierarchy will find out whether its strategic target, set three years ago, was any more achievable than the vast majority, if not all including those who set it, thought it to be when it was announced.

There is, of course, what might be termed the "Moneyball" argument - most recently adhered to by Ian Baraclough the Motherwell FC manager when, soon after his recent appointment, he expressed the belief that he could lead the club to the Premiership title - that there is no point in participating in a competition and not believing you can win it.

Baraclough took some stick for that even though his predecessor Stuart McCall proved last year that Motherwell could out-play every other team in Scotland across a campaign leaving, in effect, only one to beat.

The SRU might claim to be doing the same but their situation would, in SPFL terms, surely be better compared with the likes of Dunfermline, currently fourth in Scottish football's third tier but who were in the Premiership as recently as 2007, the last time Scotland reached the Rugby World Cup knockout stages.

Lord help John Potter - the Pars' 35-year-old manager for any wondering - were he to claim right now that he could see his club winning the Premiership.

Yet failure to accept repeated invitations to step back from their infamous target means that is the context in which the SRU must be measured and as we move into 2015 it is right to question whether it is any closer to achievable than it was when its announcement invited and duly drew such ridicule, not least from within the World Cup host nation.

Great encouragement has been drawn in some quarters from the performances of Glasgow Warriors and Scotland this past year and, as ever in Scottish rugby, the cheer-leaders have done their bit while attempts have been made to marginalise those daring to offer realistic analysis.

However Scottish rugby really does need proper analysis since far too many dreamers and chancers have got away with far too much for too long.

This year marks the silver anniversary of the last Grand Slam and Triple Crown wins, Scotland's only appearance in the World Cup semi-finals having come off the back of that in 1991.

Since then, in spite of vast sums being paid to administrators, international competitiveness has steadily declined to the extent that the Six Nations era has seen the national team repeatedly fail in annual bids to get into the top half of the table even in a closed shop that protects its status.

This autumn brought creditable wins over Argentina and Tonga however, as has been customary since Scotland rightly felt forced to field an under-strength side against them in the 2007 World Cup pool match, New Zealand rested their Test team mid-tour and still maintained their more than century long stranglehold.

That inability to beat the All Blacks is just one of the obstacles to a Scottish World Cup triumph, another being the small matter of almost certainly having to beat England at Twickenham, something Scotland has done just four times in more than a century.

As to what can be drawn from this latest round of domestic derbies the ending of six years of Glasgow Warriors dominance in these derbies also offers encouragement that there may be a shift away from a deeply unhealthy dependence on one feeder team.

We will learn more over the next few weeks as Glasgow bid to take advantage of it having been made easier to reach the quarter-finals for the first time, but also seek to ensure they avoid finishing bottom of their European pool for the first time in three years.

The steady, odds-defying progress of preceding years in the Heineken Cup having stalled so horribly in the past two this, then, is the year in which Scottish rugby must prove itself capable of stepping beyond the internecine battling of the 1872 Challenge Cup, the only trophy a senior Scottish professional team has won this Millennium.