Sirius

The Winning Try: A Rugby Drama Without Rugby

Overview:

This drama is 12 episodes long and has the tag “sports.” In reality, throughout watching this drama, I started questioning whether it was actually a sports drama at all. It seemed more like a corruption drama or some kind of politics K-drama, because for a show about a rugby team, there was barely any rugby being played. We saw more of the shooting team than the rugby team, which is pretty weird. And even the shooting wasn’t shown that much compared to all the endless politics.

Plot:

This drama was more about Ga-ram and his disease, Ga-ram and his love story, Principal Jong Hyo and her questionable kindness (which I would just call incompetence, because she’s not good enough to be a principal), Vice Principal Jong Man being an annoying, ambitious man obsessed with replacing her, and Shooting Coach Nak Gyeon, who is just a piece of work and has no purpose other than being unpleasant.

Then there’s the female lead, I-ji. She is written like a carpet, a welcome mat. Everyone steps on her and ignores her opinions. She loses everything because she easily lets them get to her head. By the end, she becomes a coach and throws away her dream of being a player in a way that felt completely forced. It was as if the writers decided she wasn’t allowed to become a medalist. I didn’t understand why they created this plotline that forced her to immediately switch to coaching.

Notice how until now I’ve barely talked about the rugby team. That’s because there’s barely any rugby in this drama. The rugby team exists, and they do play matches, but the only time we actually see them play is against the exact same team three times. Literally the same team. Not once did they play another team in front of us. The only times they played against other teams were shoved into montages, without showing the actual games. This is why I say this isn’t a rugby drama. What kind of sports show about rugby only shows them playing one team over and over? It’s like they didn’t have enough actors, so they reused the same opponent. And every match followed the same cliché: the rival coach trash-talks them, says they suck, Hanyang's team loses (twice), and then they finally win the third time. It was very repetitive and it felt like those cliche high-school movies from the 2000's.

And when the team finally does step on the field, it isn’t until episode four. Before that, they spend their time training in swimming pools, running around, and climbing stairs. What kind of sports drama is this? And even then, how are they suddenly good? What kind of potential do they have if they’re not even training properly? The show never once showed us any unique, genius training from Ga-ram that would explain why the team suddenly improves. In a show like Hot Stove League, we actually saw what made the manager special and what made the team better. Here? Ga-ram was a great player in his prime, but that doesn’t automatically make him a great coach. The show never explained what his tactic was. They basically put all the blame on the old coach and made it seem like just switching coaches turned the players from terrible into competitive. That’s nonsense.

Characters:

Ga-ram is written as if being a former player automatically qualifies him as a good coach, but the drama never shows how or why. His smiling and overly casual attitude often made him seem more like a teenager than a leader. I-ji is constantly stepped on and eventually forced into coaching, which felt like the writers didn’t want her to succeed as a player. Principal Jong Hyo is presented as kind and supportive, but her decisions come across as weak and naive. Vice Principal Jong Man is portrayed as the villain, but ironically his logic wasn't all that horrible tbh. His philosophy was that if you win, you win; if you lose, you lose. Harsh, yes, but logical in a sports-focused school. If a team keeps failing, why keep wasting resources on them?

Shooting Coach Nak Gyeon is one-note, existing only to stir conflict.

Minister Gyu Won and his daughter Seol Hyeon make up most of the shooting subplot. He is willing to rig matches and cheat to make her win, and he abuses his political power to do it. But honestly, this whole storyline felt meh as it was -again- not sports related. It was the entire focus of the drama, and it had nothing to do with rugby (and shooting ironically).

Don't even get me started on some of the Rugby team's characters. Most of them were there for comedy relief which somehow carried this drama actually.

Sports Element:

As a sports drama, The Winning Try completely fails. Rugby is barely shown, the matches are repetitive, and the only real improvement we see comes through montage. There is no convincing explanation of how the players actually got better, no strategy, no training methods, and no sense of growth. Meanwhile, the shooting subplot dominates everything, with Gyu Won pulling strings for Seol Hyeon. That storyline is boring and irrelevant to rugby, but it stretches across most of the series anyway.

Themes:

The show tries to pit two philosophies against each other: Principal Jong Hyo’s belief that everyone deserves a chance, and Vice Principal Jong Man’s belief that only the best deserve resources. The writers clearly want the audience to side with Jong Hyo, but her stance comes off as naive, while Jong Man’s logic feels grounded in reality. In fact, his reasoning made more sense—if students don’t have what it takes to win, maybe they should focus on academics and prepare for university instead of wasting time on a sport they can’t pursue professionally.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

The one thing this drama has going for it is the comedy. It was surprisingly decent and helped lighten the otherwise heavy and frustrating tone. Some of the characters were at least memorable, even if they were poorly written. But the weaknesses overshadow everything. There was little rugby, the matches were repetitive, the players’ growth was never shown, the focus on corruption was too heavy, and the disease and romance subplots were unconvincing.

Verdict:

The Winning Try was marketed as a rugby drama, but it turned out to be a corruption drama dressed up in sports clothing. The shooting team, politics, and side plots took center stage, while the rugby team and their journey were left in the background. All in all, I would give this drama a 5 out of 10.

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