Summary
In Episode 5, The Winning Try continues to tell a much wider story than just that of the rugby team, and it’s still working on every level.
While it’s ostensibly a show about rugby, The Winning Try is really a show about people. And this is becoming more and more obvious as we progress, with Episode 5 being perhaps the best example of it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rugby player, a shooting player-coach, a bitter vice-principal, a restaurant owner, or a wannabe policeman; this show has something to say about you, and about the extremes of emotion that come with excellence in any field. It’s a sports drama intermittently, but it’s a character drama all the time.
The areas of focus are expanding, too. While Ga-ram and the rugby team are, of course, of primary concern, there are great subplots for individual players, the faculty, and several members of the shooting team. In fact, the episode’s climax has nothing to do with the rugby team at all, and the one rugby match in the episode occurs off-screen. It’s clever storytelling, allowing the competitive anticipation to build while also fleshing out other cast members and building real texture into Hanyang.
Anyway, we pick up where things left off, with I-ji discovering Ga-ram passed out in the corridor. She assumes he’s drunk, and Principal Kang quickly arrives and supports this notion, but we know better. Thanks to someone helpfully pointing it out in the comments, Ga-ram is suffering from Myasthenia Gravis, a condition causing abnormal muscular weakness (this was apparently confirmed in the premiere, but I must have missed it — my bad). A three-year-earlier flashback shows that he was diagnosed during his playing days, which is almost certainly why he took PEDs. It also turns out that his habitual bubble-blowing is really a way for him to surreptiously check his breathing, since the condition can be fatal. All throughout The Winning Try Episode 5, he seems to be getting worse, which I fear may be leading us towards a deeply unhappy ending. But let’s look on the bright side.
Despite Ga-ram having recruited Ung and U-jin having ensured he was able to win the special admission tryouts, Seong is still making it difficult for the rugby team to train anywhere, so they’re forced to improvise. There are funny scenes of them using the pool and taking part in an impromptu soccer match with rugby rules, but with their goal to become champions of the Nationals, which is realistically the only way to secure the future of Hanyang’s rugby program, the training situation is less than ideal.
And Yeong-gwang realizes this. His disillusionment with the team and their chances led him to apply for the police force, which nobody knew about, but he’s forced to reveal it since Ga-ram happens to book a practice match against a pro team on the same day. Based on things we’ve heard previously about the low percentage of Hanyang students who end up making a living as professional sportspeople, he has a point, but Ga-ram wants to make sure he’s not just throwing his toys out of the pram by gauging his determination. He’s to hit 300 dropkicks and score 200 of them, a task he deems impossible since even pro players miss one out of every two. By the end, he has scored more than half, which Ga-ram helpfully tells him is a better average than the guy who went on to play the same fly-half position for the national team. Yeong-gwang’s potential is capably proven.
This leads to a big fist-pump moment when Yeong-gwang, upon discovering a note of support signed by all of his teammates, abandons the police exam and joins the others for the game against OK Rugby Club, which they lose 41-12. This is a victory of a kind, though, since they managed to score 12 past a pro side. The Nationals suddenly seem a lot more achievable, especially with all the players now back on the same page.
But let’s talk about shooting. The Winning Try Episode 5 has a sizeable focus on I-ji, who is at a crossroads in her career as a player-coach. She’s on the last year of her contract, and after U-jin throwing the match against Ung, Nak-gyun denied her a three-year extension. So, she now has to make the national team, which means she has to put aside her coaching instinct and compete directly against her players in a qualifying heat. It’s a big deal within the school, with even the rugby team pitching up to watch the contest. The top four qualify, and I-ji, U-jin, and Seol-hyeon are all competing for positions.
Naturally, I-ji starts running away with it, leaving Seol-hyeon out of the qualifying places. Nak-gyun, slimy little gremlin that he is, pulls I-ji aside to tell her that if she doesn’t throw the match and let Seol-hyeon qualify, he’ll bury her career. So, she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. With no other options, she lets her final shot time out, Seol-hyeon creeps into fourth and qualifies, and U-jin immediately intuits what happened. As if she wasn’t confused enough about her sporting career and what losing can do to it.
On the upside, I-ji is probably going to want to get her own back on Nak-gyun. If only there were someone else in the school who was endlessly at war with the faculty with whom she might team up to do it.
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