Bedwas

Bedwas RFC's fiercest meetings come against Bargoed, a few miles up the valley, and against Llantwit Fardre, both fixtures billed locally as derbies rather than ordinary league dates.

The club sends its better players on to the Dragons, for whom it acts as a feeder side, and some have gone further still: Cory Hill left Bedwas for regional rugby and a Wales cap, a lock who wore the black-and-white hoops before he wore red.

Bedwas plays at The Bridge Field, on Bedwas Road, a ground that holds 3,000. It has not always kept the club safe: in 2007 Bedwas faced relegation from the Welsh Premier League not for results on the pitch but for failing a Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) facilities review.

Honours have been thin but not absent, and mostly arrived the hard way. Bedwas lost the final of the inaugural Foster's Challenge Cup in 2016, 34-38 to Pontypridd, and lost again in the 2021-22 WRU Championship Plate final, 21-23 to Trebanos. The pattern broke in 2026: Bedwas beat Bridgend Athletic 38-29 at the Principality Stadium to win the WRU Championship Cup, then went on to take the Championship East title and return to the Welsh Premiership.

The club's own history runs back further than its official date. Bedwas was founded in 1889, though a team is known to have turned out in the village as early as 1885.