Carter Cup knight in shining armour

Former All Black flyhalf scores perfect 10 in masterclass company

Wisely, Chris Robshaw chose to postpone his testimonial dinner at Harlequins this year, after the promotional literature promised he and a few teammates would regale their audience with a selection of rousing World Cup tales. It sounded, in the wake of England’s debacle at their own tournament, like a proposal for the world’s shortest book, akin to “Swiss War Heroes” or “The Wit of Kimi Raikkonen”.

It will take more than two months of postmortems, or the much-trumpeted arrival of head coach Eddie Jones for the Rugby Football Union to grasp the scale of the opportunity missed when Robshaw and colleagues crumbled lamentably in the group stage of a competition they had been waiting seven years to host. The mercy was that the void of homespun success in those six convulsive weeks could be filled by international stars who fulfilled their headline billing and more.

Perfect endings in sport are infernally difficult to script – think of 20-time champion jockey A P McCoy, who, in April, could not quite burnish a send-off at Sandown with one last winner – but somehow Dan Carter and Richie McCaw both managed it upon the stage of their poignant goodbyes.

Granted, Carter has subsequently taken up a lucrative club deal at Racing Métro in Paris but, for the Test careers of two totemic All Blacks with 260 caps between them, a World Cup final at Twickenham marked the last stop on the road.

Carter, evidently, was determined to enjoy himself, producing as flawless a performance at flyhalf against Australia as was possible to conceive.

Rarely, if ever, are individuals in any sport rated 10 out of 10, but for these 80 minutes, Carter scored a set of 10s to rival Nadia Comaneci.

Immaculate in every department, he kicked four penalties, two conversions and a wonderfully opportunistic drop-goal to subdue the Wallabies’ second-half resurgence. Just for good measure, he also led the tackle count, with 12.

Away from the pitch, Carter is an understated soul. He once turned up in the media room at Augusta, casually watching a Rory McIlroy press conference as a guest of Kiwi media magnate Craig Heatley. I met him in London in September, the day before the World Cup began, and he talked fondly of his upbringing in Southbridge, on New Zealand’s South Island – the one place on the rugby planet, he claimed, where he felt he could slip into anonymity.

“People there know me from way before I became an All Black, and they rip into me about the couple of kicks I missed,” he said. “They keep me grounded.” Carter will be on BBC One tonight, to thank the British public for voting for him as Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.

In 2015, it should be deemed a signal honour to be so distinguished in an uncommonly crowded field. Who would dare dispute the credentials of Novak Djokovic, who has won three of four major tennis titles and, staggeringly, appeared in the final of every event he has entered since January?

There should be no underestimating, either, the accomplishment of Serena Williams, who, at 33 – three years beyond the age at which Steffi Graf retired – went three for three until a surprise semifinal derailment at the US Open by Italy’s Roberta Vinci.

Queen Serena was Sports Illustrated’s choice as Sportsperson of the Year, although it was not exactly an uncontentious vote. Not after her nearest rival for the accolade was American Pharoah, the thoroughbred racehorse who won the US Triple Crown.

This year, sporting feats by humans have been sufficiently stunning to discount the case of our four-legged friends. The future of golf is lit up by the potential of Jordan Spieth, the Texan whose back-to-back victories at the Masters and US Open rendered him the youngest multiple major winner since Gene Sarazen in 1922. He came within a stroke of qualifying for a playoff in the Open at St Andrews, before a runners-up finish at the USPGA brought him to an astonishing total of 54-under-par for the four majors, better than even Tiger Woods managed during his record-breaking 2000 campaign.

The legend of Usain Bolt, meanwhile, survives intact. The finest sprinter in history had looked sluggish in his tune-ups for the world championships in Beijing, but prevailed when it mattered most to capture gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay. It was his fifth such treble at a major championship: a jaw-dropping tour de force, when one considers that no other athlete – including Jesse Owens, Bobby Joe Morrow, Carl Lewis, Maurice Greene and Tyson Gay – has pulled it off more than once.

Fellow icons vied for attention, with Lionel Messi’s third Champions League winner’s medal for Barcelona all but assuring him of a record fifth Ballon d’Or next month.

Others, not least Lizzie Armitstead – whose world roadracing win in Virginia coincided with England’s hapless loss to Wales at the Rugby World Cup – had the misfortune to be eclipsed at their hour of triumph.

But for the sheer breathtaking implausibility of his deeds, Andy Murray took some beating in 2015. While he had a creditable year in the majors, advancing to an Australian Open final and to the last four at Wimbledon and Roland Garros, he played for his country like a man possessed. Posterity might record that Britain’s first Davis Cup since 1936 was a team endeavour, that James Ward’s win over John Isner in their world group match against the US was critical to the eventual outcome, but this was fundamentally Murray’s moment.

He referred to his decisive vanquishing of Belgium’s David Goffin as his most emotional experience on a tennis court with good reason, having reeled off 11 straight wins in live rubbers to match Ivan Ljubicic’s haul for Croatia in 2005. It cemented him – for all that he will be challenged tonight in the BBC’s popular vote by Jessica Ennis-Hill, the world heptathlon champion a year after giving birth to son Reggie – as Britain’s greatest active sportsperson.

Odd-numbered years tend to be the poor relations in sport, denuded as their summers are of Olympic Games or major football tournaments. But 2015 can, all told, be considered a rousing exception to the rule. — The Sunday Telegraph