CLARETS full-back Stephen Ward is aiming to finish 2016 on a high with the Republic of Ireland after they secured six points during the international break.

Martin O’Neill’s side won 3-1 in Moldova on Sunday night to back up Thursday’s 1-0 win over Georgia in Dublin.

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The triumph over Georgia at the Aviva Stadium looks even better after the same side held Wales to a draw at the Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday.

Ireland had looked like dropping points in Moldova for a large part of the second half, after Igor Bugaiov had cancelled out Shane Long’s early opener. But James McLean scored twice in seven minutes to complete a 3-1 victory.

“The most important thing is we came here and did our job,” said Ward. “We can’t worry too much on other results, but we know there’s going to be twists and turns, teams will drop points – it makes our result on Thursday look really, really important now.

“Winning here tonight is great, we’ve come here and put on a decent performance and roll on next month now.

“We’ve got a lot of experience in the squad. We regrouped at half-time, we wanted to continue with the performance we put in in the first half and create the chances we created and thankfully James put two of them away. “ Ireland are now level with Serbia at the top of Group 4 in World Cup 2018 qualifying, having begun their campaign with a 2-2 draw in Serbia.

In November they travel to Austria for another crucial encounter in what looks a very difficult group to call, and having been criticised for their performance against Georgia on Thursday night, Ward was delighted to end this international break with a maximum points haul.

“You look at the three games they’ve played and obviously they lost narrowly to ourselves and Austria and they’ve gone and got a result at Wales so they’re a decent side and they’re improving all the time, as we know too well from playing them in the last qualifying campaign,” Ward said of Georgia.

“Listen, it’s important you win your home games, we’ve done that, and it’s an even bigger bonus to come away here and win.

“It’s been a good week for us, and as I say, we’ll look forward to Vienna next month.”