Sheffield Wednesday's latest late goals add to belief and momentum in huge win over Queens Park Rangers

Before drawing 1-1 with Leicester City, the Owls were bottom of the Championship with five defeats from their first six games under new manager Danny Rohl, 12 points adrift of safety – even five from 23rd despite it being Rotherham United they beat in that sequence.

Now they are off the bottom, and the gap to safety is six points. Over the last five games they are seventh in the form table, tucked at the back of a four-team pack including Leeds United on goal difference. Millwall, one of those six points ahead in the standings that matter, are 22nd.

When a team 1-0 down after 85 minutes wins 2-1, as Wednesday did against Queens Park Rangers, it is a good sign. The Owls have scored three points-winning stoppage-time goals in the last five games.

That Bailey Cadamarteri’s equaliser was slightly mishit is also positive. Fortune follows teams who force it, and it only evened out Bambi Diaby putting an Ilias Chair shot that ought to have been on its way to the goalkeeper's gloves past Cameron Dawson with a diving header.

It would be disingenuous to look at everything in black and white, but the picture is a heck of a lot better.

No Championship path runs smoothly, and a midweek 3-1 defeat at Norwich City was certainly a pothole hit. The Owls were not that great at the weekend, and it is untrue to say their fans had blind faith.

They were much better than a QPR side themselves revitalised by a new foreign coach (Marti Cifuentes), not that you would have guessed.

They were the only team who pushed for goals and although the possession statistics did not show it, dictated the game. But until Cadamarteri and Anthony Musaba’s strikes, their only shot on target was Barry Bannan's from the best part of 30 yards, which Asmir Begovic pushed wide with a low save.

There were boos as they went in 1-0 down at the break.

Rohl made a positive half-time change, replacing centre-back Diaby with winger Djeidi Gassama. The formation stayed the same but the personnel down the left gave a more positive feel.

Cifuentes' double change confirmed QPR's problems were bigger.

The positive substitutions kept coming from Rohl but with the cutting edge still absent, so did the frustrations on a day when some fans marched through Hillsborough Park carrying banners demanding Dejphon Chansiri sell the club.

Dawson's confidence looks shaken by being asked to play with his feet in a way which does not match his skills and was fortunate a terrible punch at a corner a minute before Diaby's own goal was not properly punished when referee Andy Davies found a soft QPR foul. He did the same when Will Vaulks netted direct from a second-half corner.

Dawson's fellow Wednesday fans are not exactly helping at times.

"We're losing 1-0, you idiot!" screamed one irate Main Stand supporter when the goalkeeper did not immediately release the ball after dropping onto Sam Field's weak shot in the 86th minute.

Presumably he was leaping up in delirium like the rest seconds later when a driving Gassama picked out Cadamarteri to scuff a shot yet still spin it perfectly inside the post.

Good strikers score scruffy goals. You measure theirs on scales, not by hanging them on walls, and in only seven Championship games – two from the bench – the 18-year-old has already weighed in with three. The new five-year contract he was tied down to last week was shrewd business by a club which had not done much on that front in recent years.

The 86th-minute equaliser felt and sounded like a winner but in an era of extended stoppage time it barely counted as late, and everyone – probably including those in red-and-black hoops – knew a winner was there for the taking.

It came as chaotically as it was celebrated, Ashley Fletcher heading Bannan’s cross against the post before Musaba pounced to score, rip off his shirt, and run to the fans.

It earned three points, just like every other winner at the weekend, but some goals and victories are more valuable than others.

About a third of the way to the points they will need for survival with the season’s halfway mark this weekend, the Owls have far to travel. The belief and momentum building makes you think they can get there.

Sheffield Wednesday: Dawson; Valentín (Palmer 70), B Diaby (Gassama 46), Bernard, Famewo; Musaba, Bannan, Vaulks (Fletcher 79), Johnson; Cadamarteri, Paterson (Buckley 70 (Byers 85)). Unused substitutes: Bakinson, Ihiekwe, James, Vasquez.

Queens Park Rangers: Begovic; Cannon (Willock 46), Clarke-Salter, Dunne, Paal; Dixon-Bonner, Dozzell (S Cook 83), Field; Smyth (Kakay 72), Armstrong (Dykes 46), Chair. Unused substitutes: Archer, Richards, Duke-McKenna, Drewe, Pedder.

Referee: A Davies (Hampshire).