In a week Hartlepool have transformed bottom-of-the-league blues into mid-table optimism with the first back-to-back victories of their stuttering season.
The six points have shown that manager Chris Turner is right to say they are capable of recovering from their shocking start to the campaign.
And he was spot-on to pluck Gordon Watson from South Coast gloom and give him the chance to earn North-East cult status.
Watson's four goals in last week's two wins have done more than anything to give Pool renewed hope. They have proved that he's well and truly back after a year-long injury nightmare.
He's scored seven goals in 11 games since Turner found him trying to rescue his career with Portsmouth reserves.
And the quality of some of his goals have made him a firm favourite with the Victoria Park crowd.
Turner said: "Gordon has been magnificent for us. His experience is priceless, his goals have earned us lots of points, and some of them have been crackers."
Watson's first-half strike on Saturday certainly was, a mirror image of Alan Shearer's volley against Aston Villa a week earlier after a right-wing cross by the impressive Darrell Clarke.
Exeter battled to come back in the second half and had Pool on the rack at times. But they missed their chances and home keeper Tony Williams made a great one-handed save from Christian Roberts.
Pool finished it off a minute from the end when Adam Boyd showed all his skills to cut through two or three defenders on the right and pull the ball back for fellow sub Tony Lormor to score from 10 yards.
"It wasn't a great game, but it was a great win," said Turner.
"The goals were real quality and two wins in a week have done us a lot of good."
Exeter boss John Cornforth played his first game for Sunderland on the day Turner played his last.
And he said: "That was our best performance since I took over as manager. We looked like the home team at times in the second half."
But they couldn't find the sort of finishing Watson has added to Pool's output - the sort of finishing that could help them continue their drive up the table.
