Graphic: battle to beat the drop - relegation run-ins | Tyne-Tees derby: How the match unfolded

It has taken six difficult weeks for the Alan Shearer effect to infuse Tyneside and, with 20 minutes of this desperate skirmish remaining last night, Newcastle United were still waiting.

Anxiety and mayhem reigned inside St James’ Park, but, keeping his head while all about him were losing theirs, the former Newcastle and England captain made a substitution that changed the game, transformed the mood and quite possibly altered the course of his club’s turbulent recent history.

Taking off Michael Owen was a decision that will have gone against everything Shearer felt that he knew about the game when he first accepted Newcastle’s emergency call at the end of March, but, as he stood on the touchline, watching this critical game pass Gareth Southgate, his former England team-mate, by, it was a move that he found irresistible. Off came Owen and on went Obafemi Martins, who, within 55 seconds, had scored the goal that kick-started Newcastle’s survival bid and left Middlesbrough staring into the abyss with relegation looming.

When Martins scored, twisting and turning inside the penalty area to shoot beyond the grasp of Brad Jones, it was as if a valve had been released, expelling the doom and gloom that has gathered on Tyneside in recent months.

There is still much to be done, starting at home to Fulham on Saturday afternoon, but Newcastle suddenly, critically, have momentum, with their second win since December 21, which was secured by Peter Lovenkrands, another substitute, in the 85th minute, taking them out of the relegation zone, leaving Hull City in the bottom three for the first time this all season.

Shearer called it a “brilliant” performance, saying that his players had shown “courage, determination and the ability that they know they have”, but that seemed a version of the match seen through black-and-white tinted glasses.

In reality, it was desperate at times and, while they deserve credit for the manner in which they responded to the gut-wrenching blow of falling behind to Habib Beye’s own goal in the third minute, Newcastle were going nowhere until the course of the evening was changed by the Martins goal, after which the atmosphere changed and it was only a question of how many the home side would score.

Southgate’s team are entitled to feel that they deserved better than to lose, their misery compounded by a first-half foot injury that cut short Afonso Alves’s night. They played the better football for long periods, but Newcastle equalised through Steven Taylor after Beye put through his own net in calamitous fashion, and survived an awful start to the second half before the two substitutes struck.

Middlesbrough were unfortunate not to score during the middle period of the game, when they looked by far the more assured team, with Gary O’Neil and Mohamed Shawky tightening their grip of midfield, but ultimately they will surely pay the price for their lack of experience.

How different might things have been had they been able to call upon Mark Viduka, their former forward, who led the line magnificently for Newcastle throughout.

These past few weeks have felt like a last hurrah at the top level for Viduka, who has rarely looked fit enough or hungry enough since arriving at St James’ Park from Teesside two years ago, but he carried the fight for Newcastle, dropping deep to dictate their attacking play, holding up the ball and attempting to release Owen with a series of well-judged passes behind the visiting back four.