jQuery 1.4.2 cannot set a <select> through 'val()'.

The following code works fine with 1.3.2, but 1.4.2 doesn't:

HTML:

<select name="venCod" class="prevNext" onChange="alert(this.value)">

<option value="123">Item 1</option>

<option value="456">Item 2</option>

<option value="789">Item 3</option>

<option value="012">Item 4</option>

<option value="345" selected>Item 5</option>

<option value="678">Item 6</option>

<option value="901">Item 7</option>

<option value="234">Item 8</option>

<option value="567">Item 9</option>

</select>

SCRIPT:

$("select.prevNext")

.before("<a href=# class=prev ><</a>")

.after("<a href=# class=next >></a>")

.siblings("a.prev,a.next")

.click(function(){

var $sel = $(this).siblings("select");

if ( $(this).hasClass("prev") ) var cod = $sel.children("option[selected]").prev("option").val();

else var cod = $sel.children("option[selected]").next("option").val();

if ( cod ) $sel.val(cod).change();

status = cod + ' = ' + $sel.val();

});

The last item is always selected when the links are clicked, no matter what is the option selected before.

If I set "multiple" to <select>, every item were selected when "a.prev"/"a.next" was clicked.