James McClean shows pride in Jersey

In the depths of New Jersey commuter country, Tuesday morning was all about shaking off cobwebs.

The first bank holiday Monday of the Stateside summer had been celebrated with gusto by the locals, judging by the dull morning-after quiet that hung over Whippany, a sparsely populated slice of suburbia 40 miles east of Manhattan.

The quiet, however, wasn’t to last. Ireland’s team bus rolled through the leafy streets and pitched up at the training facility of Major League Soccer’s Red Bulls, nestled in the type of nondescript industrial corner that New Jersey specialises in. Martin O’Neill’s men had their own cobwebs to be rid of and once limbs had been stretched and the transatlantic journey shaken from their systems, things began to get really loud.