With sheer determination and incredible teamwork, our rugby team comes out triumphant, creating a miracle against all odds. Our head coach did his best to protect his boys, and now it is time for them to stand up for him.
Our rugby team and their head coach get their happy ending, and the baddies make a disgraceful exit befitting their corruption. The drama might leave a lot to be desired, but at least it ended on an upbeat note.
- Main Leads: Yoon Kye-sang | Im Se-mi | Kim Yo-han
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- K-Dramas of Similar Vibe: A Head Coach’s Turnover | Racket Boys | Hot Stove League | Mental Coach Jegal |
Bunny S. watches The Winning Try on Netflix
Episode Recaps: 01 & 02 | 03 & 04 | 05 & 06 | 07 & 08 | 09 & 10 | Finale Week Recap + Series Review
The Winning Try Finale Week Recap
Going through Ga-ram’s room, the vice principal comes upon his medication and medical report. He then orders a doping test to be done on the rugby team and suspends Ga-ram. He shall either resign voluntarily, or the vice principal will find a way to annul his appointment. Also, the principal will be held responsible for hiring Ga-ram despite being aware of his condition.
Just then, Ga-ram has another seizure and is transported to the hospital. His condition is now critical, so the doctor schedules the surgery at the earliest slot he can. Protest as he may, Ga-ram can’t postpone it any longer.
Figuring the steroids are Seong-jun’s, Yeong-gwang gets mad and attacks him. But the rest break them off. Sick of waiting, they head to the hospital to check on Ga-ram. They might feel scared without a coach, but Ga-ram wants them to keep training and play in the nationals. He might not be physically there, but everything he taught them will stay with them.
The rest head back to the school while Seong-jun stays for the night with Ga-ram. They chat a bit, and Ga-ram gives Seong-jun a pep talk. For the last three years, Seong-jun put in a lot of effort and kept the team going when they didn’t have a coach. Taking a brief break doesn’t erase his hard work. Thus, Seong-jun should trust himself. And if he can’t, then he should trust his teammates.
The next day, the vice principal calls Seong-jun in. He is aware Ga-ram took the blame for him. So, he wants Seong-jun to help him hire a new coach in return for turning a blind eye to the steroids incident. However, Seong-jun knows better than to be fooled by that man. Relaying the situation to the boys, Seong-jun suggests they boycott the nationals to protect Ga-ram. The nationals might be his last chance, but Seong-jun will regret it more if he plays without Ga-ram. And the rest agree with him.
Putting on their school uniforms, our rugby team protests. Either the vice principal grants Ga-ram sick leave and forgets about hiring another coach, or they won’t play in the nationals. He can sign up for the nationals all he wants, but they won’t move an inch at the stadium. Instead, it is the principal who steps up and turns in her resignation just a few months before her retirement.
Now that he has achieved his goal and gotten promoted, the principal asks the vice principal (we will keep calling them that) to follow the rugby team’s wish and let Ga-ram stay as their coach. Which he begrudgingly does. It is frustrating how the few decent adults at the show keep sacrificing themselves while the shameless baddies retain their positions.
Meanwhile, the shooting team holds in-school tryouts for the nationals. With U-jin undergoing rehab, Coach Jeon is confident Seol-hyeon will win. But contrary to his expectations, U-jin is back in shape and comes in first, thanks to Yi-ji’s rehab plan and encouragement. Better yet, U-jin breaks free from her bossy mother, declaring she will manage her shooting career on her own. From now on, her success will be hers, not what her mother couldn’t achieve and is trying to make up for through her.
In a similar instance, Seol-hyeol calls her father out on meddling with the tryouts and college admission, arguing she chose shooting since it is the fairest game, so she wants to compete fair and square. But that confrontation would have been more meaningful if Seol-hyeon hadn’t indulged in special treatment before, wholly aware her father was pulling the strings for her.
For the remaining time before the nationals, our rugby team continues training while Ga-ram devises tactics for all the possible scenarios and hands them to Seong-jun. He didn’t make a plan for the final game, though. Which might be a sign he will recover before them and join the boys on the field.
As it happens, the send-off ceremony for the nationals and Ga-ram’s surgery are scheduled for the same day. Our boys feel a bit down, but a video message from Ga-ram lifts their spirits. Other teams might look down on them or call them weak, but he knows they put in more effort than everyone.
As Ga-ram is wheeled into surgery, our rugby team arrives at the stadium. We get a quick montage of the games, and for the first time in 15 years, Hanyang High advances to the finals. Our boys will play against Daesang. They are exhausted from having to play successive matches without rest. But they have faith Ga-ram will join them for the last game. They almost lose hope, though, when a courier delivers the plan for the match against Daesang. But they resolve to win and take the trophy to Ga-ram.
Just before the match starts, Ga-ram makes a grand entrance reminiscent of the one he used to make as a player, getting our boys thrilled. He wasn’t discharged but pleaded with the doctor to let him keep his promise to the boys and wrote a memorandum to return to the hospital after the match.
The first round begins. Unluckily, Daesang is ahead with 2 points. However, the worst part is a player, Hyeong-sik, getting badly injured. His wound needs to be stitched up under anesthesia. But he won’t be able to continue playing. Ga-ram asserts that only six players will play in the second round. Yet, Hyeong-sik insists on finishing the match, opting to endure the pain and get his wound stitched up without anesthesia.
In the second round, the stakes are higher, and our boys are on their last legs. Daesang players push them hard, but our boys’ hard work pays off, and they secure the win in the last few seconds. Hooray! Our rugby team is the national champion.
Through a dramatic sequence, U-jin secures a gold medal too. As she prepares for the match, the vice principal arrives with the police in tow. With too much evidence stacked against Coach Jeon’s corruption and U-jin’s mother reporting him for assault, the vice principal cuts him loose and fires him from the shooting team, instructing him to keep his mouth closed and lie low until he calls back for him.
Though we are elated to bid Coach Jeon farewell, this leaves U-jin without a coach just a few minutes before the match, and she almost gets disqualified. In another sacrificing moment, Yi-ji drops out of her match (she was competing in the adult division) despite being so close to winning a medal and rushes over to U-jin’s side, putting an end to her career as a player.
We have mixed feelings about Yi-ji’s decision, though. As Yi-ji said, her match was over a long time ago. And her regrets held her back from accepting the truth. But she could have won a medal and gotten closure for the past before starting a new chapter as a coach without regrets.
Either way, the school earns its best records at the nationals, and the vice principal brazenly tries to take credit for it. He even has the nerve to claim to have supported the rugby team against those who wanted it disbanded. No need to get mad, though, as he soon gets fired after Coach Jeon retaliates and turns in the evidence he has against him.
In a rushed and unearned redemption arc, Mr Na. leads the investigation against the vice principal and decides not to interfere with Seol-hyeon’s future anymore, acting noble as if his wrongdoings are now erased. In better news, the principal is reinstated and will conclude her term before receiving the honorable retirement she deserves.
The semester is over, and it is already the graduation ceremony for the third-year students. Seong-jun got accepted into university through early admission. But sadly, Yeong-gwang and the other third-year student, Seo Myeong-U (Lee Su-chan), won’t be playing rugby again. Still, they ended their sports careers on a high note.
Yeong-sik is now the captain, and Ung joins the National Youth Team, leaving the school sometimes for training. The team of seven has now been reduced to a team of four. No, wait a minute. Tae-pung got transferred back, so there are five in total. Worried about getting dismissed, Ga-ram packs up in advance. Yet, he is confirmed as the head coach for the next season. Yi-ji is promoted to head coach, vowing to prioritize her shooters. She is back together with Ga-ram, and the two put on matching rings.
The teenage couple gets their happy ending, too. A nervous Seong-jun confesses his feelings and asks U-jin out. But she already knows about it, holding his hand to mark the beginning of their dating era. Satisfyingly, U-jin got into her dream college, the one Coach Jeon schemed to send Seol-hyeol to. Speaking of whom, we don’t know about Seol-hyeon’s next step, but she seems relaxed.
With the third years celebrating their graduation, the second and first years advancing to another level, and the head coaches planning for the new season, the drama comes to an end. Once again, Ga-ram and the rugby team resolve to win the nationals. And we are rooting for them to continue their winning streak and get stronger.
The Winning Try Quick Series Recap
A former national rugby athlete goes off the grid after a doping scandal ruins his career. Three years later, he makes a comeback as the head coach of his high school alma mater rugby team. But instead of welcoming arms, he has to deal with a mad ex-girlfriend, who is the school’s shooting coach, and an unimpressed team captain who wants him gone.
The Winning Try Series Highlights and Musings
The drama is another example of a story trading its interesting parts (Ga-ram and the rugby team’s dynamics) for worn-out and boring tropes (the school politics and the 1D villains). For a story about rugby, we only got 3 matches, though we could have watched much more if the show had cut down on the villains’ screen time and focused on its characters.
We didn’t sign up for a story about evil adults scheming against students to steal their budget, but for a story about growth and team bonding. We wanted to follow the boys closely as they learn from their mistakes and become stronger. But it all happened in such a quick span that it took away from our enjoyment. At least, Ga-ram’s illness had to do with his character arc, though it was mostly used to raise tension.
Since Yi-ji was a shooting coach, we expected to follow the shooting team as a secondary plot line. But it was more about Coach Jeon getting on our nerves than about Yi-ji. And it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say Coach Jeon got more focus than Yi-ji.
We got behind this turn of events because we wanted Coach Jeon and the vice principal gone. But for all their corruption, their ending felt unsatisfying and rushed, as if the drama needed to wrap up their character arcs abruptly to move on to the happy ending after having them get away with their wrongdoings for 11 episodes.
The romance between Ga-ram and Yi-ji started interesting, but felt quite underdeveloped along the way. Instead, it is Seong-jun and U-jin’s love line that stole our hearts, though we aren’t necessarily fond of how the drama used Ung to stir Seong-jun’s jealousy.
The Winning Try isn’t an unwatchable or awful show, but a frustrating and disappointing one. It had all the right ingredients to weave an uplifting sports show. Yet instead of capitalizing on its potential and embracing its strengths, it tossed aside all of that in favor of annoying plotlines the audience is sick and tired of watching. Still, we might revisit Ga-ram and the boys’ scenes when things feel heavy and we need a push to pursue our dreams.
Photos and Videos: SBS Drama
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