HE only had half an hour’s worth of fitness to contribute to the desperate Everton cause on Saturday.

But on his first game back in his native Midlands, that’s all it took James Vaughan to change the whole course of a campaign.

Which isn’t overstating the case because this victory over West Bromwich Albion could be the key to resurrecting this fading summer.

The nights are getting darker but suddenly – and not just because of the new fluorescent yellow third strip – thing are looking a whole lot brighter.

Vaughan’s selfless shift finally gave David Moyes the chance to swell his attacking options and that was ultimately the key to his side’s first victory of the campaign.

Less than 20 minutes after he had made his entrance the underworked home defence had been sufficiently shaken up by the extra presence in their third of the field to allow Leon Osman and Yakubu to make the decisive interventions.

But Vaughan’s willingness to put his body on the line was the most admirable aspect of that match-defining period, particularly for someone with an injury history that suggests he’s been auditioning for Jackass.

He dragged Albion all over the place and his previously lacklustre team-mates up by their bootlaces on a day when he shouldn’t even have been on the bus let alone the pitch.

But it wasn’t about Vaughan as an individual. He needs to get himself ready for 90-minute appearances, maintain his fitness and not allow his old-fashioned all-action style spill into stupidity the way it did in Chicago.

It was what the 20-year-old epitomised that was significant on Saturday. It resurrected the Everton spirit, once the linchpin of all their recent charges into Europe, but one that has slowly been eroding away with each passing day of transfer window inactivity.

It was in evidence all over the Hawthorns and stunned an Albion side who started looking like they fancied their chances but had no answer to Everton’s second-half resurgence.

Mikel Arteta provided more magic to ease the breakthrough. Yakubu kept up a goal-a-game start to the campaign. Phil Neville shattered the pain barrier. The back four finally settled down and saw out those tense final few moments that Roman Bednar’s penalty produced.

And there was more valuable first-team experience for Jose Baxter and Jack Rodwell, combined age 33. Their impact may have been limited but Baxter can only benefit from a nerveless first start and Rodwell was unfortunate to see what should have been his first senior goal ruled out for a push a minute before his side eventually took the lead.

The long-term problems may be far from being resolved but it all added up to a performance that could have far-reaching significance in the closing days of August and well beyond.

Imagine you’re a player pondering a move to Goodison Park and you see your prospective new employers languishing at the foot of the table, no points after two defeats out of two.

Why would you want to plunge into the pressure cooker of a team that can’t pick up a point against West Brom? That’s a relegation battle waiting to happen.

Now there is a genuine belief you’d be joining a set of players committed to battling against insurmountable odds. People you can rely on in a crisis.

Of course, nobody will get too carried away with victory over Championship-standard opposition and certainly not after a first half in which the hangover from the previous week’s lapse to Blackburn was there for all to see.

More composure – particularly form Ishmael Miller – from a series of excellent crosses from the right early on could have shaped a whole different game.

But Everton simply had to win on Saturday. Unless Moyes can go on a trolley dash Dale Winton would enthuse about in the remaining shopping days, he will still have a small squad to choose from.

Which proved perilous in the agonising climax to last season when Everton crawled over the finishing line into that one UEFA Cup spot. The reason that late lapse didn’t cost them was because of the points collected in the early part of the season.

And the victories in the opening two league games of last season that left Everton top of the table were as vital to the final tally as any.

So these first points on the board could not have been more precious in the circumstances.

Moyes knows that too. After the opening day defeat to Blackburn, his high-risk strategy of holding out for players of a certain quality in favour of bolstering the numbers was questioned.

Letting another week go by without amending that situation was a massive risk and yet, he somehow managed to make it all work out again.

Investment in the squad remains vital but for now, what sorts out the managers from the boys is how you work with the tools you’re given. Bad workmen blame them, good ones make the best of them.

After all, the Everton team sheet has become as welcome a piece of paper as the first credit card bill after Christmas.

And it brings home your woeful lack of resources to a similarly depressing extent.

Therefore, having the courage to still gamble on an even more inexperienced line-up than the week before, preferring the 12 minutes first team experience of 16-year-old Baxter to the 33 Portugal caps of Nuno Valente, could have backfired spectacularly.

And it looked like it might when WBA responded to the optimism and exuberance of a first home game since promotion by dominating possession.

Which wasn’t difficult because when Everton managed to get any, they surrendered it at will. Aimless, pedestrian, panicky. A half-decent team would have capitalised.

But the Baggies are no half-decent team. They might have made their visitors envious with a couple of new signings and a significantly more experienced bench – they even had Pele on it – but the quality wasn’t there as Everton rode their luck to survive the first half and the early part of the second.

Then Vaughan provided the injection of energy and Rodwell the belief with his towering header that was ruled out. But it was always gong to take a moment of Arteta class to give Everton the edge.

Vaughan pressured Leon Barnett into a sloppy pass that the Spaniard pounced on like a hungry tiger, and he mauled the Albion defence with a perfectly weighted pass that Osman took in his stride to sweep past Scott Carson.

That effectively finished the hosts off and Yakubu hammered home the initiative by chasing down Joleon Lescott’s hoof to shrug off Abdoulaye Meite to nod in the second and his 100th in English football..

Even the late penalty awarded for handball against Phil Neville couldn’t break that spirit and team ethic. The players gathered for a rather garish huddle before the game but they stuck together throughout.

Much work still needs to be done on and off the pitch but the harshest judges will always be the fans.

So are those who packed the away section the Hawthorns still worried about the lack of acquisitions?

“2-0 and we’ve signed no-one,” they sang at one point.

Doesn’t look like it.