Ward was part of the Ireland Sevens team that narrowly lost to Fiji in the Olympic quarter-finals in Paris last summer. Ulster scraped into the knockout stages of Europe’s premier competition with one win from their four pool games, while Bordeaux are top seeds and have scored the most tries (33) in the competition this season. However, the province has shown an upturn in form, winning their last three games. Ward said: “We've nothing really to lose. I think everyone outside of our group has kind of written us off already, but we're not afraid of the challenge. "We know it's going to be difficult, but it's knockout rugby, anything can happen. If you'd told us after that first Toulouse game that we would get a knockout game, we’d have been delighted, but no, these things happen, I guess, and we just kind of roll with it. “We take the hand that's dealt to us, and we'll just give it a crack. “It might be a little bit of a different setting than the last time I was playing in France, but I imagine it's going to be just as loud and I'm definitely going to be just as up for it as I was in Paris.” Bordeaux have a star-studded backline including wingers Louis Bielle-Biarrey – voted Six Nations player of the tournament – and David Penaud, who has 10 tries in Europe this season, but Ward takes solace from the game in December where Ulster led going into the final quarter. “Don't get me wrong, they are a good team, but I think for the first 60, 65 minutes of that game we were in front,” he said. “I think we kind of let our foot off the gas a little bit and you can't really afford to do that against a really, really top-quality side. “So, we definitely go into this weekend with a lot of confidence knowing that if we put our best foot forward and climb into them, that we're going to be in a good place. “I suppose what we've been really just thinking on all this week is just focus on ourselves, and just trying to play the best rugby that we can because we know that if we do that we'll put ourselves in a good place.”