It was a 30th cap for Ward but his first in eleven months and he played the first 69 minutes of the game before being picing up an injury and being replaced by Hull's David Meyler. Almost immediately, Ireland scored the only goal of the game through Shane Long to record a 1-0 win and that leaves them with a very good chance of qualifying for next year's finals.
They got to Warsaw for a winner takes all game against Poland on Sunday with the Germans one point ahead of the pair, but whoever loses that game is now guaranteed a play-off place following Robert Lewandowski's dramatic late equaliser for Poland against Scotland tonight, a goal that has sent the Scots out of the competition.
The Republic of Ireland are in with a good chance of making it, and Northern Ireland's 3-1 win against Greece at Windsor Park has guaranteed their place. There were no Burnley players in their side tonight with two ex-Clarets, Chris Baird and Kyle Lafferty, both sitting it out with suspensions, but Burnley born Oliver Norwood was in the side that has sent them to their first finals since the World Cup in 1986.
Steven Fletcher was in the Scotland side tonight, and scored just past the hour to give them a 2-1 lead, a goal that looked as though it was going to be a winner until that equaliser in the dying seconds.
And one other former Burnley player has been on international duty tonight. Gabor Kiraly won his 98th cap for Hungary, They were rocked with an early goal for the Faroe Islands but Hungary went on to win 2-1 in Budapest. They too are in the play-off positions with one game to go, one point behind Romania with one of them guaranteed to qualify from Group F with Northern Ireland.
Tomorrow will be Sam Vokes' day hopefully as Wales look to get the one remaining point that will take them to their first finals since the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.
The INTERNATIONALS feature has been updated with this evenings appearances for Burnley players past and present.