Narrating an uplifting story about growth, sports, and underdogs, a former star athlete with a ruined career gets a second chance at life as the head coach of his high school alma mater’s rugby team.
The catch: he has to help them move up from the last spot to victory, on top of dealing with a livid ex-girlfriend and an unimpressed team captain. It is safe to say our head coach has his work cut out for him.
Will he pull off another win? Or, will his past issues and current hurdles get in the way?
Bunny S. watches The Winning Try on Netflix
Opening Week Ratings:
The Winning Try Opening Week Story
“I am a man with many titles.”
The story opens in 2022, where our male lead, Ju Ga-ram (Yoon Kye-sang), is a skillful rugby player leading his team to victory in a major tournament, securing the winning try at the last moment. Everyone is hailing him, but following some doping allegations, Ga-ram loses his gold medal and reputation, and makes a hasty decision to retire.
3 years later, Ga-ram makes a chaotic comeback as the newly appointed rugby head coach at his alma mater, Hanyang Physical Education High School. Simultaneously, the rugby team is about to get disqualified from a match for not having a coach. Yet, Ga-ram shows up in the nick of time, introducing himself as the new head coach.
Unsurprisingly, the team members are mostly indifferent to Ga-ram. Yet the captain, Yoon Seong-jun (Kim Yo-han), is especially averse to him, opting to forfeit rather than have Ga-ram as the coach. (Seong-jun used to be Ga-ram’s die-hard fan but turned on him after the doping scandal, calling him a traitor who ruined rugby.)
The next day, the team heads to see their former head coach, Kim Min-jung (Song Young-kyu), to convince him to return. But he snickers at them, arguing he quit before they could drag him down. Figuring out what they are up to, Ga-ram puts Coach Kim in his place and leads the team back to school.
On top of winning over the rugby team, Ga-ram has another minor task on hand: dealing with his ex-girlfriend, Bae Yi-ji (Im Se-mi), or more precisely, running away before she kills him. After he abruptly retired, Ga-ram went off the grid and ghosted Yi-ji, putting an end to their 10-year relationship. So, she vowed to kill him the next time they met. Yi-ji is a coach on the school’s shooting team, so it doesn’t take long for them to reunite. Cue: Yi-ji shooting Ga-ram with a fake gun and him fleeing away.
We also learn Yi-ji hasn’t retired yet, training discreetly at night and preparing for the national team tryouts while putting up with the nasty shooting head coach, Jeon Nak-gyeon (Lee Sung-wook), who looks down on her and tasks her with cleaning after the team’s top athletes.
“What can you do for us as a coach?”
In the background, sports politics are simmering. The vice principal (Kim Min-sang) and his clique plot to dismiss the rugby team and allot its funds to the shooting team, claiming they should support a high-achieving team and stop wasting resources on an underperforming one. Backing this plan is an influential parent whose daughter, Na Seol-hyeon (Jane), is on the shooting team and is the school president too.
Abusing his authority as the deputy superintendent of education and head of the PTA, Seol-hyeon’s father, Na Gyu-won (Jang Hyuk-jin), has Coach Jeon treat his daughter favorably, drafting the training schedule in her favor and having the team captain, Seo U-jin (Park Jung-yeon), do extra training to keep Seol-hyeon company as she trains. Also, he files a petition to dismiss Ga-ram and pressures the principal (Gil Hae-yeon) into accepting.
Originally, it was the principal who recommended Ga-ram for the job. (It wasn’t illegal hiring. He went through the proper procedures.) And it seems they have strong ties, as suggested in a flashback where the principal acts as a guardian for a sick Ga-ram. To her credit, the principal stands up for Ga-ram and the rugby team as much as she can. But there is only so much she can do to keep the team afloat when the entire school gangs up on them.
Low performance aside, there are communication problems and poor teamwork between Seong-jun and his teammates. Which is highlighted when he supports the dismissal petition against Ga-ram without consulting the others. Tricked by the vice principal, Seong-jun thought firing Ga-ram meant they would get another coach. Instead, the team is one step closer to disbandment. They don’t have a coach or a space to train after the other teams took over all the places.
Worse, the rugby team gets into a fight with another team while trying to train. To be fair, the other team started it, yet the rugby team is the one getting punished. Ga-ram’s hands are tied because he is suspended and practically an outsider. Not that he will stay put, showing the vice principal and his clique how crazy he is, ruining an important school event after the rugby team was excluded from participating.
“Once the petition is passed, you will no longer be here.”
Furious, the vice principal demands a vote on the dismissal petition so they can fire Ga-ram. But he acts nonchalant, focusing on making up for the missed training hours. Enlisting the principal’s help, Ga-ram has the rugby team join the other teams for some joint training. And it goes as well as one can imagine, getting the other coaches worried about having the rugby team dumped on them in case Ga-ram gets fired. So, they vote against his dismissal. (If that was Ga-ram’s plan since the beginning, then he has succeeded.)
The vote result is a tie. Which means Ga-ram will keep his position. The rugby team, minus Seong-jun (who voted for Ga-ram’s dismissal), is warming up to him. So, it is a step forward. Yet the vice principal won’t give up, roping Ga-ram into playing a practice match against Daesang High (the school where Coach Kim now works), so he will lose and embarrass himself.
Ga-ram knows the team’s chance of winning is minuscule. Yet he wants to teach the team to lose well, losing without giving up. But this only raises the already existing tension between Ga-ram and Seong-jun who snaps and goes AWOL.
Following him home, Ga-ram calls out Seong-jun’s name using a megaphone. For a moment, those two hold a reasonable conversation. Since Seong-jun hates Ga-ram, not rugby, he shouldn’t give up on his dream. Admitting to having ruined his career, Ga-ram promises he won’t let the rugby team end up like him. So why don’t they play rugby together? His words touch Seong-jun’s heart, and he comes around.
“What kind of college counseling happens behind the coach’s back?”
On the match day, the vice principal tries to sway Seong-jun again with a tempting offer: back out in return for a recommendation letter for college. Because of his scandal, Ga-ram can’t write recommendation letters or meet with coaches from pro teams, which makes the offer more enticing. Also, Seong-jun’s twin brother, who plays soccer, was scouted abroad while he struggles to get into college. The inferiority complex almost gets the best of Seong-jun, driving him to be fooled by the vice principal once again. But he walks away from that trap.
During the first half, Ga-tam tells the team to play as they always do. But he wants to observe their teamwork and then form a more practical strategy. The Daesang team scores one try after another (in rugby, a goal is called a try), while our rugby team scores nothing. But it is mostly because Coach Kim cheated and used his intel about our rugby team to help the Daesang team score more points.
Things change, though, in the second half, as our rugby team puts up a strong defense, stopping the Daesang team from scoring any points. Better yet, they score a try in the last moment. Which marks the team’s first try in a long while. Ecstatic, the rugby team huddles around Ga-ram and celebrates together.
After winning over the team, Ga-ram has another obstacle ahead of him. Coach Kim approached the youngest team member, Kim Tae-pung (Cho Han-gyeol), with a scouting offer, arguing there are no bench members and most of his teammates are already in their third year, so the team will be disbanded once they graduate unless they get new members. Which is unlikely given Tae-pung was the only recruit this year.
Tae-pung is conflicted as he likes his teammates but also won’t stay on a team that might vanish in a moment. Although the team might get disbanded if he leaves, Ga-ram doesn’t pressure Tae-pung to stay, leaving the final decision to him. Ga-ram might look carefree, but he hides a wild spirit beneath that facade. So, let’s hope he will overcome this hurdle as well and recruit more members to our team.
The Winning Try Opening Week Musings
The drama is off to a strong start, and we appreciate that all the characters have room for growth. Ga-ram needs to drop the nonchalant act and share the truth about the doping scandal with Yi-ji, whether he did it or not. Also, he should apologize for ghosting her back then and abruptly ending their relationship.
Likewise, Yi-ji should be honest about her feelings and stop saying things she doesn’t mean. She keeps claiming she wants Ga-ram gone, yet we can see she still has feelings for him. She cares for him enough to worry about him and watch the match against Daesang after wishing he would be fired to his face. Just fight it out, Sis, and then get back together or break up for good.
Being unable to let go and move on is one of Yi-ji’s key traits, both with Ga-ram and shooting. Yet she needs to reflect on whether she still enjoys shooting and has a goal to achieve, or the fear of regret holds her back.
The rugby players are all likable, and we are rooting for them to get character development and become more in sync. We got a lot on Seong-jun. So we hope the others will be explored along the way. Seong-jun is talented, yet he should stop comparing himself to his brother. It is annoying that their parents are focused on Seong-jun’s brother and ignoring him. Yet unless Seong-jun stops feeling inferior to his brother, he won’t feel satisfied no matter how high he climbs.
Interestingly, we have a love triangle brewing in the background, entangling Seong-jun, U-jin, and Seol-hyeon. Seong-jun has a low-key crush on U-jin, who seems to like him too. Yet Seol-hyeon has her sights on Seong-jun, and she is the type who won’t accept defeat. Still, the drama is in the beginning. So there might be room for growth for U-jin and Seol-hyeon, too.
While we expected some opposition to Ga-ram, the sports politics lean heavily and somewhat take away from our enjoyment. Having a source of tension to spice things up isn’t necessarily bad. But we come in for the characters’ journeys. So, we hope the drama tones down the politics and focuses more on its underdog tale.
Photos and Videos: SBS Drama
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