BEDWAS stole a fourth successive Welsh Premier Division win at Pandy Park with a last-minute try on Saturday to maintain the Indian sign over bewildered opponents Cross Keys.

Two defeats from two at home suggest Keys could be in for another struggling season, especially as they no longer have top forwards like Will Thomas, Rhys Williams and Gary Horrigan to call on.

To avoid this, they have to win at home against teams likely also to figure in the lower half of the table, and this was one such game for the quality of rugby was awful.

In fairness, both clubs readily acknowledged their inadequacies.

"We have to be happy with winning, for sometimes you play well and lose, but there were no winners really," said Bedwas coach Steve Law.

"The standard of play was atrocious and I was disappointed with my squad and I'm sure the Cross Keys coaches will feel the same."

Keys coach Greg Woods said: "We deserved what we got. We defended poorly. Some of our boys are working extremely hard and some are not, and that's unacceptable.

"We were 19-6 up and in position to kill the game, but Bedwas competed hard and we just fell off tackles and we have to put that right."

In a game littered with errors and with little cohesive rugby, Keys undoubtedly should have won.

They were the stronger side up front for most of the 80 minutes, faced 14 men for 20 minutes as Bedwas pair James Harris (44-54min) and Adam Brown (72min until the end) were yellow-carded, and had a high penalty count in their favour.

Most of the penalties were for offside or killing the ball and Keys full back Leon Andrews converted five, but he missed three others that were kickable.

Both sides were also disrupted by injuries, a calf problem for Scott Mitchell forcing scrum-half Ryan James to move to outside-half for Keys after 58 minutes, and an injury to Bedwas pivot Jason Tovey three minutes earlier resulting in him being stretchered off to hospital as a precaution and replaced by centre Jon Welch.

Unfortunately for Keys, who led 19-11 at the time of Mitchell's loss, they suffered within seconds as, with his first touch in his new position, James had a kick charged down by Bedwas replacement hooker Peter Harrison which gave space for centre Adam Hughes to score a try which full back Stuart Thomas converted.

This made it 19-18 and gave Bedwas renewed spirit, and though two more penalties for Keys to one by Bedwas left Keys 25-21 ahead, the visitors piled on late pressure.

And when Keys conceded a penalty metres from their line with just seconds remaining, Bedwas took a tap and left wing Nathan Hill squeezed over to clinch the spoils for the visitors.

Cross Keys: L Andrews, G Williams, D Price (N Tucker 40), D Dark, D James, S Mitchell (J Leadbetter 58), R James, J Price, K Jama (L Burns 50), N Buck (C Gould 62), M Curtis, B Watkins, G Gladwyn (J Malpas 50), T Lampard, C Bridges.

Bedwas: S Thomas, S Horner, A Hughes, J Welch, N Hill, J Tovey (D Atkins 55), S Jones, J Tilley (B Edwards 23), B Flower (P Harrison 50), K Jenkins, S Dafydd (R Edwards 48), A Brown, P Sargeant, J Harris, D Mattravers (N Lewis 48).

Scorers: Cross Keys: Tries - C Bridges, D James; penalties - L Andrews (5).

Bedwas: Tries - B Flower, A Hughes, N Hill; con - S Thomas; penalties - Thomas (2); dropped goal: J Tovey.