The general sense afterwards was that Ireland had had slightly the better of this scoreless draw with Stoke City striker Jon Walters amongst those to suggest that the home side had enjoyed just a hint of superiority over the course of a lacklustre game.

"We played pretty well and are quite happy with the performance," said the 31 year-old who came on for Daryl Murphy with just over half an hour remaining.

“We were dangerous with the ball in different parts of the game. Players like Robbie and Aiden put in some great balls. I thought our set-pieces were really dangerous. Robbie put some unbelievable deliveries in and we were unfortunate not to sneak a goal from one of them.

It was quite a comfortable game in the end really.

“I don’t think we got opened up too much or anything. I don’t think we got threatened too much.”

Walters was on, in fact, for what probably amounted to the visiting side’s best spell of the game with Ireland pinned back for the bulk of what was perhaps 15 minutes. Still, it was then that Ireland went closest to actually scoring with the striker having a shot himself that Hart parried and Aiden McGeady couldn’t quite follow up on.

“Yeah. If it goes either side it goes in.,” he said. “Sometimes when you miss-hit those they go in. I just hit it too straight.”

Daryl Murphy, he reckoned, was “excellent”. Both he and David McGoldrick, he said “did really well,” which, he suggested, would keep the pressure on the more established players.

“The manager said we’re playing for our places and everyone’s place is up for grabs. So there’s good competition for places all over the pitch. But it’s a huge game next week and we all knew that. It was great to have this game to get us ready for that.”