The Winning Try: Episodes 1-2
by lovepark
A star rugby player turns from hero to villain and vanishes from the public eye only to reappear three years later as a coach. His return is met with disdain by most, especially the captain on his team, but our newbie coach is determined to keep trying. While he may have strayed from the right path himself, he hopes to impart his wisdom to his juniors and teach them that rugby is not about the final destination but the journey along the way.
EPISODES 1-2
The show begins three years in the past at the 2022 Asian Rugby Cup. Korea has advanced to the finals to go up against Japan for a spot at the Olympics, and at the center of all this fervor is ace JOO GA-RAM (Yoon Kye-sang). Living up to expectations, our hero scores the winning try — a goal in rugby — but right at the height of his career, he falls. He gets embroiled in a doping scandal, and rather than flowers, he receives derision and scrutiny upon his return. With his head bowed, Ga-ram announces his retirement and disappears.
Fast forward to the present at the prestigious physical education school Hanyang High where Principal KANG JUNG-HYO (Gil Hae-yeon) goes over the school’s budget with her staff. Vice Principal SUNG JONG-MAN (Kim Min-Sang) suggests the disbandment of the rugby team, citing their dismal record last semester, and the show gives a quick rundown of our underdog heroes.
Up and coming ace KANG TAE-POONG (Jo Han-gyeol) is the team’s only first-year. Crybaby KIM JOO-YANG (Hwang Sung-bin) and former judo athlete PYO SUN-HO (Woo Min-kyu) are the second-year heavyweight props while fellow second-year DO HYUNG-SHIK (Yoon Jae-chan) is the foul-mouthed short king. Then come the third-years starting with rookie influencer SO MYUNG-WOO (Lee Soo-chan), civil-servant examinee OH YOUNG-KWANG (Kim Yi-joon), and finally, team captain YOON SUNG-JOON (Kim Yo-han).
It becomes immediately evident why Hanyang’s rugby team lost every single game last year, but Principal Kang reminds her staff that they are a school, first and foremost, with a duty to protect their students. Undeterred, the vice principal points out that they no longer have a rugby coach, and on cue, the door slides open to reveal Ga-ram back in the flesh.
His splashy entrance — a chase across the school that ends in a headlock — is merely a friendly introduction to the hijinks this man will unleash on his alma mater since no one besides the principal welcomes the disgraced star into their fold. In fact, Sung-joon is outright hostile towards Ga-ram and even forfeits a practice match if it means playing for a juicer.
Our captain’s animosity, though, is child’s play compared to Ga-ram’s number one hater and ex-girlfriend BAE YI-JI (Im Se-mi). Correction, current girlfriend since the two never broke up after Ga-ram ghosted her for three years since his scandal, so when Yi-ji sees him slink back into her life without so much as an apology, she grabs her gun to end his life right then and there. As a shooting player-coach, Yi-ji has access to firearms in a country with strict gun control, and Ga-ram has enough sense to run before she actually hits him with real bullets instead of BBs.
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A brief flashback reveals that Ga-ram’s sudden retirement might have been due to an injury that left him on a ventilator, and that incident seems to have shaped his philosophy on coaching. Rather than push for success, he emphasizes his players well-being, both physical and mental, but there’s only so much a single coach can do when an ambitious vice principal is set on getting him fired.
Though the principal has Ga-ram’s back, the vice principal has Deputy Superintendent of Education Na Gyu-won on his side, and he also happens to be the head of the PTA and father of school president NA SEOL-HYUN (Sung Ji-young). Convincing the PTA to call for a vote about Ga-ram’s appointment, the vice principal gets our newbie coach suspended indefinitely. With no teacher supervision or adequate place to practice, our rugby team quickly gets into trouble, and as punishment for fighting with the track and field team, the vice principal makes them set up the opening rite ceremony for the new semester.
Despite the rugby team doing all the work, Sung-joon notices that they were left out of the rite and tries to place a rugby ball on the table. The vice principal tosses it aside since their school does not need a bad luck team like them, and the boys can only watch as their sport — nay, their entire existence — is seen as nothing more than a nuisance. However, the moment they hang their heads, Ga-ram appears to lift them right up as he throws a rugby ball into the middle of the symbolic pig head cake. It explodes into a mess of pink frosting, covering the vice principal and the shooting coach JEON NAK-GYUN (Lee Sung-wook) in sugary viscera.
Still sporting the remnants of the pig disaster, Vice Principal Sung moves the vote up, convinced that Ga-ram will be dismissed since even the rugby team captain has agreed to vote yes. In the meantime, Ga-ram asks the principal to help his kids train, and the rugby players get shuffled around the school, joining different practices. While the students get in some much needed training, the real gain from Ga-ram’s plan comes in the aftermath: the rugby players are walking disasters (breaking expensive equipment and endangering coaching staff) and the other teachers have just experienced it firsthand. As a result, the vote ends up a tie, and per school bylaw, the status quo remains.
With Ga-ram reinstated as coach, the rugby team can accept practice matches again, and Daesang High asks for one before the start of the semester. The principal warns Ga-ram that this is a trap to discredit his skills — Hanyang has never scored a point, let alone win, against Daesang in the last five years — but our new coach accepts the challenge since his team needs the experience.
Though he only has a few days before the match, Ga-ram pours everything into coaching, staying up late to analyze past games and come up with individualized training regimes. The boys follow his directions with gusto, all except for Sung-joon who believes following a player expelled from the league will lead them nowhere. He walks out on practice without permission, but when he gets home, the place is empty since his mom left to take care of his (more successful) twin brother.
It clearly stings for Sung-joon to be always treated as second-rate both at home and at school, so when he wakes up in the morning to Ga-ram calling for him with a megaphone, he seems embarrassed but not entirely peeved. Especially when Ga-ram scolds him for wearing cleats on asphalt and hands him his own shoes to wear, our captain starts to soften a little. Ga-ram asks Sung-joon to come play rugby if he doesn’t hate the sport, and though he can’t teach him the right path, he can steer him away from the wrong one.
Once Sung-joon returns, the whole team comes together as one, and the day of the practice match arrives. Daesang’s new coach is actually the boys’ previous coach, and the traitor has the audacity to belittle Hanyang for being a hellhole. Thankfully, Ga-ram has no need for proprieties, especially to talking dogs, and tells the ex-coach to stop blaming the players for his failures. While Ga-ram might not be the best role model, I love how he’s a staunch defender of his students and no one — noisy vice principals and demeaning ex-coaches be damned — will get away with mocking his team.
At the start of the game, Ga-ram tells them to play like usual, which means getting absolutely demolished on the field. The team’s defense is a sieve, and the first half ends up 0 to 35. The game, though, isn’t over yet, and Ga-ram slams his fist to the ground since they are about to play real rugby from this point forward. He changes their defensive formation, and with his instructions, the team actually keeps Daesang from scoring in the second half.
Nearing the end of the match, the team overhears their ex-coach yelling at his players to crush Hanyang, so Sung-joon turns to Ga-ram, asking if there was any way they could win. Understanding his players’ desires, Ga-ram tells them that they are changing tactics again, and this time, they are going on the offensive. Despite only coming together as a team a couple of days ago, the players follow Ga-ram’s game plan, and in the critical moment, the rugby ball flies through the air towards Sung-joon.
As Ga-ram watches from the sidelines, he comments on how the rugby ball is unpredictable. That’s why a point is called a try rather than a goal because, in rugby, it is not about the results but the process to keep pushing forward — to never stop trying. With five seconds on the clock, Sung-joon catches the ball and scores the winning try. The score ends 5 to 0, and Sung-joon copies Ga-ram’s trademark celebration since deep down, he’s always been a fan.
Though the second episode ends on a high note, the epilogue hints at rough waters to come. Ga-ram overhears Tae-poong being scouted to Daesang High, and since they only have seven players at the moment, losing even one member spells the end of the season. While Tae-poong knows transferring would mean ruining his teammates’ dreams, he tells his coach that Hanyang has no future after this year since they have no recruits, and Ga-ram knows this, too. Rather than hold onto Tae-poong, Ga-ram advises him to take care of his ankles, but knowing our newbie coach, this isn’t him waving a white flag. Far from it.
The first week of The Winning Try digs its heel into the high school sports genre with a comic book aesthetic and cartoonish tone. Dizzily fast paced with a striking amount of character introductions, these two episodes pack a lot of information in a short period of time with varying results. With so many key players to introduce, the show inevitably leans heavily on tropes, making most of the characters feel flat and one-dimensional. There are clear sides with obvious connotations of good versus bad, but the simplicity of the characterizations isn’t inherently a bad thing. It makes the underdogs easy to root for, and with so many individuals to cover, putting focus on the main ones helps the audience keep track of the story and the through line.
While I was not immediately wowed by the first episode and found some of the setup tedious, once things started to settle down, the winsome tone of the show was endearing as were their wholesome protagonists. It’s clear that the show is painting Ga-ram not as a juicer who cheated to win but rather a player who pushed himself beyond his limits for his team. Though the plot can feel overly convenient at times with some questionable worldbuilding — why would the top high school rugby team scout the coach from the worst high school in the middle of the school year? — some of these things can be overlooked because the charm of the show is in the growing bonds between the players and their coach. Like our ragtag hero and his underdog team, the show has plenty of room for growth but there are clear signs that they still have a lot to offer.
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