EBBW Vale Rugby Club have been dealt a blow in their battle to avoid relegation from the Welsh Premier Division with the loss of scrum half Alan Lake for the rest of the season.

And they could continue to be without lock Neil Edwards, who has not played for a month because of a neck injury suffered in the loss at Neath on February 25.

Edwards is due to go for a scan but the chances are that even if the diagnosis is good, he will not be able to play for a while yet.

But the club are hoping experienced threequarter Jonathan Hawker will have recovered from a knee injury in time to play in the club's next match against Pontypridd on Saturday week.

Hawker injured himself in the warm-up before last Saturday's home game with Glamorgan Wanderers and given the problems that and Lake's injury caused, Vale did well to get a draw.

Scrum half Bryan Shelbourne had to switch to outside half with Lake as his partner, but when Lake was injured after ten minutes borrowed Newport Gwent Dragons centre Sione Tuipulotu had to switch to the base of the scrum.

Tuipulotu knew none of the Vale calls, however, so at half time switched to outside half with Shelbourne reverting to scrum half.

"Given it was our third game in eight days in stamina-sapping conditions and given our problems, I was happy with a point," said coach Alex Codling.

"The players gave me everything and Tuipulotu was fantastic and I have thanked the player and Jim McCreedy (Dragons team manager) for releasing him to play for us."