‘The Winning Try’ Gets Off To A Winning Start In Episode 1

The Winning Try is one of those from-the-ashes sports dramas that ensnares you immediately. About midway through Episode 1, which I didn’t really want to end, it occurred to me that this is a very good K-Drama on a pretty fundamental level. It has all the built-in stakes and human drama afforded by a sport’s framework – requisite underdogs, clear terms of winning and losing, etc. – bolstered by a high-school drama’s internal politics and a knack for introducing immediately compelling characters. An hour in, and I already love half the cast and hate the remaining 50%. This isn’t a show that deals in indifference.

That sense of strong emotion filters through everything. And because it feels genuine, what might be exaggerated dynamics designed to promote conflict instead feel organic and earned. We understand the stakes immediately and get why everyone feels the way they feel. High school is a pretty insular environment at the best of times, and limiting the scope primarily to the flailing rugby team and the self-serving faculty who are trying to can it could have made The Winning Try feel too narrow. But the opposite is true. Rugby is everything to these characters and, out of the gate, it suddenly feels like everything to us.

In a well-staged opening international match between Japan and South Korea, the kind of thing that makes me excited to see how the competitive elements are handled as the season progresses, we’re introduced to Ju Ga-ram, the golden boy MVP of Korean rugby, and perhaps more importantly, the scandal that now follows him around. After leading his nation to glory, he was embroiled in a doping scandal and forced to retire. This didn’t just ruin his own career but sullied the reputation of the sport in general, a legacy that is still being felt by aspiring athletes whose futures are being stymied by inadequate funding and public indifference.

This is the fate of Seong-jun, the captain of Ga-ram’s old high school team, and the other talented but unmotivated and disorganised players who are languishing without a coach or anywhere to practice. The school’s faculty is conspiring to shut down the team entirely and redistribute their already limited funding to other teams more likely to win stuff, especially the shooting team, since it’s captained by the daughter of the PTA’s wealthy frontman.

The Winning Try Episode 1 brings Ga-ram, who has a personal relationship with the principal that as yet hasn’t been fully explained, into the fold as the rugby team’s new coach. Their previous one abandoned them on a whim for a better position, which he later justifies as self-preservation, since the losing record would have damaged his reputation. Ga-ram has no such qualms – his reputation is already in tatters, which is why Seong-jun determinedly refuses to accept him (we also see later that he was present at the game shown in the opening; Ga-ram’s personal and professional ruin was, for Seong-jun, the death of his personal idol).

This premiere is all about Ga-ram’s efforts to win the team over, which repeatedly fail to an extent that is a little surprising, especially since the opening episode ends with Ga-ram being suspended at Seong-jun’s behest, the rugby team being on the verge of folding, and Ga-ram making a rebellious point by pitching a six-o’-clock pass directly into a pig’s head cake during the very serious Rite of Passage ceremony intended to bring the other teams good fortune. The Vice Principal ends up covered in icing and cream and God-knows-what, which I suspect won’t make him liable to do Ga-ram and the rugby team any favours.

But I’m sure Ga-ram will get his way regardless, which is precisely what’s entertaining about these dramas. I’m already totally invested in this team’s success, in Seong-jun coming to respect Ga-ram, in the faculty getting their comeuppance, and in Ga-ram perhaps rekindling an old romance with the shooting team’s player-coach I-ji, who is still so angry about being jilted by him that she literally tries to shoot him. I’m also reasonably confident that not everything was entirely as it seemed with the doping scandal in the first place, laying out a clear path for redemption that should be fun to follow.

The Winning Try isn’t showy in Episode 1, but it is pretty expertly crafted – it must be to create this kind of emotional investment in such a limited time. I’m all in already, and there are so many different angles to explore that the remaining episodes feel like an exciting proposition. Depending on how well the show handles the actual competitive sporting elements – and based on the opening, signs are positive – this may well end up becoming one of the better sports dramas of the year, and perhaps of recent times.

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