The Courts Young Lions moved off the bottom of the Great Eastern Yeo's S.League table on Thursday night after beating Geylang International 3-1 at the Bedok Stadium.
The hosts, second-last by virtue of goal difference, crashed to a sixth consecutive league defeat as they failed to hold on to an early lead.
Remarkably, the first two shots of the game resulted in two goals.
First, Jozef Kaplan collected Shawal Anuar's cut-back from the left byline and turned Sheikh Abdul Hadi to fire in from six yards on four minutes.
Four minutes later, a lovely reverse pass from Jordan Webb played in striker Amy Recha, who coolly slid his finish beyond Yazid Yasin to level proceedings.
The Eagles tried to hit back through Hafiz Nor, but his 25-yard curler was tipped behind by an alert Syazwan Buhari.
It was the visitors who adopted a more offensive approach for the rest of the half, but they were let down by poor decisions in the final third.
Geylang allowed their rivals to seize the initiative, by playing a counter-attacking tactic but Kaplan nearly caught Syazwan off his line on the stroke of half-time, but the goalkeeper recovered well to make the save.
It was the Slovakian who had the first opportunity after the break, but his ambitious 35-yard lob dropped wide.
Then, it was the Young Lions who turned on the afterburners with two goals in five minutes.
Webb put them ahead on 48 minutes after latching on to a through ball and rounded Yazid, before coolly finishing from a tight angle.
The Canadian was denied one-on-one two minutes later by Yazid's block, but the Geylang goalkeeper could not do anything about the third in the 52nd minute.
Sheikh's header off an Adam Swandi free kick was parried by Yazid, but substitute Nur Na'iim Ishak gleefully smashed home his first goal of the season to make it three goals for the visitors.
Jorg Steinebrunner threw on Bruno Castanheira and the Japanese nearly made an impact by releasing Kaplan with a long ball, only for his captain to fire wide from a good position.
Geylang's task was made considerably more difficult a minute later, when Anaz Hadee was shown a straight red card for a poor challenge on Adam.
The numerical advantage nearly paid off immediately when Adam cracked a terrific effort from 25 yards that crashed off the bar, with Yazid beaten all ends up.
Suria Prakash then spurned a golden opportunity to seal the game on 79 minutes when he somehow turned Amy's low cross wide from four yards.
It didn't matter eventually, as Juergen Raab's charges saw out the game comfortably to take home the three points for their fourth victory of the campaign.
The German acknowledged satisfaction at how his team battled to come back in the game, although he was not pleased with their first half showing.
"I said at half-time that we have to win more of the battles, then [we can] play easier football, then we can beat this team," he recalled.
Playmaker Adam also pointed to Raab's influence in the dressing room, which helped them to "come out stronger" than Geylang after the break in a "hard" game.
"We conceded early, it was down (disheartening) but coach kept telling us that there were still 90 minutes so we kept going," he told ESPNFC. "He did a really good job as a coach to motivate us."
Raab also sent out a warning to his players, when asked about the substitutions of Webb and Sherif El-Masri.
"We had enough players on the bench and Nur Na'iim [Ishak] played a good second half and that is what we want: competition in the team, nobody can say 'I play every time'; if they are not putting in the performances, then we change this player," he asserted.
Geylang International: Yazid Yasin, Khairulnizam Jumahat, Hafiz Osman, Nor Azli Yusoff, Anaz Hadee, Shah Hirul, Mustaqim Manzur (Huzaifah Aziz 79'), Hafiz Nor, Tatsuro Inui (Bruno Castanheira 65'), Jozef Kaplan (C), Shawal Anuar (Jonathan Tan 85')
Courts Young Lions: Syazwan Buhari (C), Faris Azienuddin (Shameer Aziq 82'), Amirul Adli, Sheikh Abdul Hadi, Farhan Rahmat, M. Anumanthan, Afiq Mat Noor, Sherif El-Masri (Nur Na'iim Ishak 46'), Adam Swandi, Jordan Webb (Suria Prakash 67'), Amy Recha