Mobile Lane marches to Georgia

Georgia celebrate their first ever win at a World Cup

Tim Lane, the former Wallaby and a much-travelled coach, takes over the coaching of Georgia's national team this weekend, on the eve of the Lelos' match with Portugal.

Lane, a Queensland and Wallaby centre in the 1980s, was the assistant coach of the Wallabies, then the assistant coach of the Springboks and then the assistant coach of Italy. He also coached the Cats in the Super 12 and Clermont-Ferrand and then Brive in France's Championship.

When Rod Macqueen took over the Australian side from Greg Smith, Lane and Jeff Miller became his assistants. When Harry Viljoen took over from Nick Mallett as the Springbok coach he, a great admirer of the Brumbies way of playing, brought Lane in from Clermont-Ferrand where he had been coaching, but Rudolf Straeuli dismissed him after taking over from Viljoen.

Lane, employed by SARFU, then coached the Cats in an unsuccessful season.

He also coached Brive, who dismissed him, Toulon when Tana Umaga joined the club, and in Tokyo the Ricoh Black Rams who were relegated at the end of the 2007-08 season.

In coaching the Georgian team he will have Levan Tsabadze to help him with the pack and Victor Didebulidze to help with selection.

The match with Portugal has twice been postponed because of political unrest in Georgia. It is a match in the European Nations Cup which is played over two seasons. This is the second season and at present Georgia are fourth but they have played fewer matches than those above them. Their only defeat was a shock one against Spain in Madrid.