Sometimes, returning after a trip causes new observations about your home -- in this case, Sydney. After three days in Cobar, I developed a refreshed recognition of Sydney's strengths. You can buy milk on Sundays, for instance. You needn't drive 315 km for the closest hardware store. Internet exists, just like air conditioning.

That said, my time in Cobar ranked as one of the most memorable -- and most rewarding -- experiences of my time here. Sure, trying to keep pace with a team of bush rugby players probably cut 10 years from my life expectancy, but in the end, I got what I wanted: The chance to learn something entirely different.

Cobar, I can tell you, is far richer in virtues than in conveniences. Conversations among those in town never really stop; they just resume, over days and months, at different locations. The New Occidental Pub is probably among the best three or four drinking establishments I've ever seen, with a friendliness of high-proof intensity.

That's where I met one woman, 28, a lifetime Cobar resident, who went her first 26 years without leaving the countryside. When she finally got to Sydney, curious to see it, she spent the first day there crying because of the rudeness and chaos.

That's also where I met a bloke named Honest Don, one of those archetype roughnecks who always had a three-day beard (I know because I saw him every day) and doesn't quite trust you unless you're drinking two beers at once. You can talk to Honest Don about pretty much anything, but he'll always enforce the same general theme, which is that human beings have been on straight decline since about 1934. Honest Don could probably kill a mountain lion with his bare hands.

Below, I've attached the story I filed for the Tely about rugby in Cobar. It'll be my penultimate byline in this newspaper. Final day of work comes tomorrow. Thursday, Slater arrives. Much to look forward to, and much to write about. I'll try to keep up. In the meantime:

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By CHICO HARLAN

Twenty-four hours before the Cobar Camels would travel to Bourke for their first rugby test of the season, one of the Camels' two coaches, Tony Ellison, wrapped up a training session by addressing his team -- a roster whose best performances in the year prior had come exclusively at the pub.

"Don't go crazy on the piss tonight," Ellison told the guys. "Let's change the culture here."

Some 15 Camels, ages ranging from 17 to 50, stood in a loose circle on the rugby field just outside of town. The last lines of sunlight had just dipped behind the oval's rickety grandstand box, painted with a Camel and the words, "Desert Rugby." The Camels listened to Ellison and nodded their heads, saying nothing. For the moment, Ellison's speech opposed 50 years of tradition; Cobar's rugby union club was generally dedicated, often ill-fated, but always well-lubricated.

"Listen," Ellison continued. "I know I'm hypocritical. Many times I'd drink right up until kickoff. But that was dumb. I hurt myself and my team. We are here to win, and we're not going to win unless we change."

More nodding. The other coach, Greg Black, stepped forward and revealed a burst of good news. The team had a full side for Bourke, 15 guys, because enough miners didn't have to work. "But," he said, "we're short a prop and a second row. So if you know anybody, bring them along."

The Camels headed back to town on this night, a Friday, feeling emboldened for the 2008 season. In the previous session, fundamentals looked strong. The coaches preached about basic rugby, ball protection and scrum structure. At least for a few hours, the Camels provided little indication of their predicament: They'd finished 1-13 in 2007. Old legends referred to the current group as "a bunch of sheilas." They shared their oval with a blind horse named George. The foremost team rule required players to jointly consume one bottle of Brown Muscat wine before games, and another bottle at halftime.

Unlike the rival rugby league club in town, the Camels provided no pay for players. During the annual league-union match last April, the league guys beat the Camels, 66-5, a misery that could only be medicated by large doses of Tooheys Old at the New Occidental Pub.

During the club's early years, a revered era of coexisting misbehavior and dominance, the Camels established the writ large standards that modern men could only die trying to replicate. To fund a 1963 exhibition trip to New Zealand, players headed to the bush to hunt feral pigs and goats. In 1965, players built their own clubhouse, laying bricks by hand, and implanting some with empty beer bottles. Between 1967 and 1976, Cobar won six Western Plains premierships. Some players commuted 400 km round trip just to attend training.

In the last 30 years, though, Cobar has won the Grand Final of its competition -- normally comprised of eight clubs -- just once. The primary reason for Cobar's existence, mining, provides a primary reason for the Camels' struggles.

Cobar is a boom-or-bust town, its population (4,918, per 2006 census data) dependent on the price of the copper and gold buried beneath the red soil. Some 75 percent of the rugby club works in one of Cobar's three mines, which require rotations of four 12-hour shifts followed by four off days. Those who elect to play rugby, then, opt for extreme sacrifice: Some Camels emerge at 7 p.m. from a work shift in sauna temperatures at 900 metres underground and then head straight to footy practice. Two contract workers recently forfeited $17,000 a piece in work just to make every game. The average Cobar miner receives 17 shifts off every year, so dedicated those to footy, not family, forces some uncomfortable priorities.

When Black, 43, the Camels' all-time leader in games, was named coach this year, he went a month without telling his wife. She learned the news when she read it in the paper.

The oldest Camel, Butch Eves, 50, a CSA mine operator, suffered a shoulder injury last year that ended his player career but perhaps preserved his marriage. "My wife was going to leave me if I played again," he said. Still, he trains with the team because he likes to bust heads.

"The mines haven't helped the club," says Peter Payne, a former Camel who's organizing the club's June 50th anniversary celebration. "Everything is more regulated now. You play your sport on the off time. Initially the mines were lenient, but not now. It affects us dramatically. One week we'll have 15 blokes playing, and two weeks later, we'll have bloody near a new 15."

Stress about such matters is mitigated by the team's role as a social club -- an acknowledgement that sport, at least in Outback NSW, doubles as communal ritual. Blokes with black dirt under their fingernails drink "black beer" at the New Occidental, the Camels' de facto home. They wear footy jumpers, which they call their "drinking uniforms." The club's goodwill toward the town indicates its expertise: At the Cobar Easter Show, the rugby guys run the bar. At the annual music festival, they run the bar. At the Louth races, they run the bar. Incidentally, the Camels are no longer in debt.

By Saturday, Cobar had all the tools necessary for Bourke. The club had a renewed spirit, thanks to an infiltration of debutants, including a new town butcher and a Kiwi. They also had a fully-loaded bus, packed up front with 24 bottles of water, nine diet Cokes, four ice bags, several kits of medical supplies, and 156 cans of beer -- just more than 10 per man, all for the trip home.

Before the bus began its 160-km march up the Kidman Way, Black stood at the front of the vehicle and explained a few rules. "No skulling on the bus this year, guys," he said. "And no spirits on the bus, too. Sorry, but that's a rule."

About two hours later, though, the team arriving to play Bourke -- a reliably strong side -- had borrowed a veil of professionalism. New jumpers, yellow with a green V across the chest, lent a look of formidability. Players talked about winning, about how, with so many mates unable to play because of shiftwork at the mines, they too needed to view the match as a job.

Evidently, their job on this late afternoon required a beating. The Camel forwards struggled with technique and drew penalties. Bourke scored three tries in the first quarter and never relented. The Camels showed some fight, and even some flashes of genuine potential, but by match's end, they walked off the field with an assortment of bruises (banged knees, bloody foreheads), having scored just one try to Bourke's nine.

"We played well in patches," Black said to the guys before they left Bourke. "Bourke is a good team."

The good news: This had only been a trial match; the season won't begin for another month.

The better news: The Camels demonstrated clear improvement from last year, when they lost to the same team, 112-3.

And the best news: Black, still standing on the grass oval, XXXX can already in hand, glanced at the horizon with a devious grin. "No matter how bad you get beat," he said, "you get a bus trip back home."