Ward, who joined the club in 2007, helped the Black Country side maintain their stay in the top flight on the final day of the season despite losing 3-2 to Blackburn. And the Republic of Ireland international, who earned his first cap recently, admits the predictions of Mick McCarthy's side dropping to the Championship spurred them on. The 25-year-old defender said: "We try not to look at what people are saying to be honest, but at the start of the season we weren't really tipped to go down. "We had a little dip in form, though, and that dropped us into the bottom three, which is when people started to predict us as one of the teams going down. "When you hear that then it does give us more ammunition to try and prove them wrong, but we tend to just concentrate on what we are doing rather than influences outside of the club."
